


The World Where Yesternight You Died

by tabaqui



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:26:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 106,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabaqui/pseuds/tabaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 2294, Jensen is an elite soldier - an ArchANGEL, known and feared through the 'verse.   Jared is an indentured 'employee' of the Company, indebted for his life and his continuing health and happiness.</p><p>They are both living with secrets that will cause their lives to intersect, and put them both on the path to exposing one of the biggest cover-ups in the 'verse.</p><p>Part one is a bit of backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [The Flight](http://www.bartleby.com/267/128.html), by Lloyd Mifflin. Beta'd by Darkhavens.

PROLOGUE -- Here it begins.

 

 _Without father, without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.  
Melchizedek_ \- John Henry, Cardinal Newman.

 

_2197 – A team of scientists in Japan complete the first prototype of drug-delivery system they hope will revolutionize the treatment for genetic, endocrine, and chemical illnesses. Their initial goal is to pinpoint minute shifts in brain and body chemistry that precede blood sugar changes, epileptic seizures, manic or depressive swings and psychotic and schizophrenic episodes. A port is implanted at the base of the skull, and a microscopic web of filaments derived from stem cells takes root and threads through the afflicted brain, lymph, or nervous system, targeting areas where the misfires or imbalances occur most frequently. The port is then used to introduce specially compounded drugs which the ‘net’ can deliver directly to the affected areas. It takes thirteen years, but eventually they achieve success. They call it the ANGEL System – **A** dvanced **N** euro- **G** enetic- **E** ndocrine de **L** ivery. _

 

2241 – Deep space mining craft _Sally Belle_ , prospecting in the outer Epsilon Eridani asteroid belt.

 

"Cap? Got a call incoming, the mothership. To your one?"

"Fuck…yeah, to my one," Issac Harvey got a hand up to his ear and tapped his earpiece twice, switching over from internal to external. "This is the Captain," he said, staring upward at the tangle of wires and circuitry that had, for the last hour, been resisting all attempts to become a functioning environmental control unit. Whatever the hell the refinery platform wanted couldn't possibly be more important than the fact that anybody on B deck was sweating their asses off.

_"Captain Harvey, this is Base. We have … anomaly … degrees zenith your position. Seems to … some kind of…."_

Issac winced at the crackling bursts of static that made the transmission a garbled mess. "Base, say again?"

 _"There is a large mass at 23.4 degrees zenith of your position."_ Base com cleared with a squeal and Issac winced again. _"Disengage your current action … protocol."_

Issac resisted the impulse to kick something. He started to worm his way out of the unit, eeling on heels and hips and shoulders. "We've got a good prospect here, Base, we-"

 _"22AX protocol, Captain. Transmitting specifics to you now."_ Base cut off, and Issac sat up and flung the tool in his hand across the room. 

"Motherfucking piece of _shit_ ," he yelled. He didn't feel better.

"Guess we're moving?" Wanda Ri, pilot and com-one, leaned in the doorway, her coveralls tied around her waist and perspiration beading along her upper lip. The raggedly hacked-off t-shirt that just covered her breasts was nearly translucent with sweat.

"Yeah, we're moving. Get everybody up top. _Damnit_ , fucking spook-hunt. We're gonna lose this damn claim."

Wanda snorted and turned around, calling on all-channel to get the crew up to the bridge so they could do a burn, find this 'anomaly'. It was probably nothing – probably some eddy in a dust cloud. Double-E was a dirty, noisy system, and somebody at Base was jumping at shadows.

Up on the bridge, the crew was settling into chairs and belting in, bitching and bickering at each other; six months out, and they were due for a break. Issac settled into his own tape-patched chair, reaching for the belts as Zo disengaged the MWD unit from the borehole they were currently drilling into a twenty-ton asteroid. As soon as she gave the all-clear, Wanda kicked them up and over, sending them after the spook Base had tracked.

"Ketty, what's 22AX protocol?"

"Now that's one I dunno about," Ketty said, hunching a little over her screen as she called up the Deep Space Geology handbook. 

"Anomaly is…ten thousand and seventy point two-two kilometers and closing," Wanda murmured.

"Anything on the long-range?" Issac asked, and Zo tapped out a sequence, sending an image to the screen in front of Issac.

"Not really. Big mass of something but there's a lot of noise out there right now. Wait, getting something…" Zo leaned in, frowning, and Ketty sat up straight.

"Shit. 22AX is ship in distress. There's a _ship_ out there." Issac shot a look at Wanda, but Wanda was intent on her console, navigating the potentially lethal course they were taking out of the asteroid belt. Zo was on the com, talking to Base, and Ketty started going through backlogs of flight plans and who'd come into and out of the system in the last couple weeks, trying to figure out who was out there. Issac watched their work on the tiny aux screens on his console – watched the image Zo had sent get bigger and less fuzzy but no clearer, really.

"Does Base have anything for us?" Issac asked, and Zo shook her head, scowling, while Base talked into her other ear.

"This _is_ need-to-know, Base, we're not gonna get up close to whoever's out there unless you tell us-"

"I've got telemetry from the anomaly," Ketty said suddenly, and keyed it to all-channel. It was a distress beacon, for sure; garbled and weak, repeating itself through bursts of static, the audio track damaged. But clear enough.

" _…Ark Glor…nna, to any sh…p, ma…day, may…. …peat, Uni…ed …th…Ark…._ "

"United Earth Ark Glorianna," Ketty said. "Mayday. _United Earth_? That's not…."

"That's familiar," Issac said, and turned left in his chair, reaching for the secondary console – accessing ship's library, searching as Zo said something rude to Base and ended transmission, and Wanda made a sudden noise of pure astonishment.

"Visual on the main screen, holy _fuck_ ," Wanda said, and Issac looked away from his screen and froze, staring. She was huge. Even kilometers away, she nearly filled the screen; an uneven dart shape, ragged – pitted with black holes, listing out of true. Dead, it seemed, in every way but for that thready, desperate voice, endlessly pleading.

Issac shivered, suddenly cold, and looked back at his screen, at the scant paragraph of information that the ship's library had. He scanned it once and went colder still.

"The United Earth Ark _Glorianna_ was launched from space station Freedom in June of 2099, with a crew of 35 in stasis sleep and a cargo of…of embryos, eggs…DNA…. Bound for the Alpha Centauri system." Issac shoved his fingers back through his hair and breathed. "She's been out here for over a hundred years."

"Alpha Centauri? How in hell'd she end up _here_?" Wanda asked, and Issac just shook his head.

"I dunno. I don't know. But she's salvage, and she's ours. Let's go."

 

Issac ended up arguing with Wanda for most of the three hours it took for them to get in docking range. Zo prepped the vac suits and Ketty put together a Claim of Salvage packet, but Wanda knew - and Issac knew she knew - that it wasn’t legal if the Captain didn’t claim in person, so he was going, even if it made Wanda seriously pissed.

It wasn’t as if Issac could safely navigate the _Sally Belle_ back to Base, anyway - Wanda had six years more training than he did and he’d never been very good with the math. He might be the Captain, but that was only ‘cause he’d had the stake to do the original buy-in. The ship could run perfectly fine without him, give or take a malfunctioning aircon unit or two.

Wanda eased the _Sally Belle_ up to an emergency airlock, carefully matching their own velocity to the wallowing, limping crawl the hulk was moving at. At least Base had been able to come up with a rudimentary blueprint of the thing, and Issac and Zo walked into the _Sally Belle’s_ lock with a fairly good idea of where they were and where to go. Ketty sealed the airlock shut behind them, and gave a little wave through the pressure-window.

“ _Emergency access in place. Be fucking careful, hear me?_ ”

“We hear you. Wanda, open her up.”

The blinking green light above the door went amber and then red as the lock sighed open, revealing the dingy white, ribbed tube of the emergency accessway. They were buffeted by the change in atmosphere, and Issac put his hand on the safety line - clipped his tether to it and pushed gently away from the sill of the lock. He drifted forward, pulling himself along the line and feeling it jerk and dip as Zo took hold behind him. A twist of flex-lights glowed overhead, yellow-white.

A minute or so of careful hand-over-hand got them to the airlock. The skin of the _Glorianna_ was pitted, burnished bright in a couple spots, scorched in others. The lock-access numbers stenciled on the door were still legible, and Issac flipped open the cover on the keypad and pressed a button. It was dead.

“Gimme the kit,” Harvey said, and Zo pushed a palm-sized lozenge of battery and wire into his hand. Issac popped the whole front of the panel off and tugged out the twist of wires underneath; spent a minute or so cutting and stripping and clipping, humming tunelessly under his breath. When he was done, he pressed a couple of keys on the lozenge and the panel glowed to life, a sickly blue-orange. 

He wrapped the whole cobbled-together mess with a sticky-strip and tapped the code into the panel. The airlock door shuddered and moved, lifting itself up and sliding sideways along the hull of the ship, edge just touching the side of the double-wide access tube. Beyond was a blackness so complete it seemed solid.

The blue-white beam of Zo’s suit light cut over Issac’s shoulder, illuminating the interior of the lock. There was a fur of frost over the surfaces, glittering like diamonds. Issac toggled his own light on and stepped gingerly into the lock. His suited foot skidded an inch and he stopped, only moving again when it felt solid, clearing the doorway and crossing the lock. The interior access was dead, too, so they left another battery pack tethered there and entered the ship.

“ _Schematic says you’re in the general crew area - mess, classrooms and rec._ ” Ketty’s voice was tinny over the suit com, a little staticky - ghostly, and Issac took a long breath in, settling himself. _“You’re gonna want to go down about ten decks and forward...fuck, half a klick, at least. Scan says...there may be some rotation in the aft area. Might be gravity down in engineering, med labs...hydro. **Might.** ”_

“ _Shit, okay,_ ” Zo muttered, and Issac oriented them in the right direction and started moving forward, a low, bounding stride that was easy to maintain.

“We’ll get directions when we’re closer,” Issac said, and then there was only the muted thump of his feet, coming up through the suit, and his and Zo’s breathing on the com.

Half an hour in, a bark of surprise from Zo had Issac turning too sharply and knocking into a wall. Conduits were down everywhere, here - long drapings of wire and tubing like intestine, glistening with frost - and Issac grabbed onto a thick twist of wire and dragged himself to a halt. The ceiling showed signs of fire damage as well as the walls, and a ragged, gaping hole down near the floor showed evidence of the explosion that had caused the damage.

“What the hell, Zo?” Issac barked, and Zo waved him over, her breathing a little short, a little panicky on the com.

“ _There’s something...I think it’s a body. But it’s not...it’s not right._ ”

“Not _right_? What does that mean?”

Issac disentangled himself from the conduit and moved to Zo, crowding against her and peering into the open doorway, his brain stuttering over thoughts of biological contamination, mutations, some kind of _extro_.... Beyond Zo’s shoulder was what looked like a storage closet, a room about ten by ten with shelves bolted to the walls and a litter of stuff - it looked like boxes of spare clothes, maybe? - charred and compressed along the floor and up into the corners. Almost like a nest, and in it....

“Holy shit,” Issac muttered. He moved forward slowly, suit light trained on the huddle of wizened flesh and charred bone in the center of the mess. Two, three... four skulls, fetally curled arms and legs and slender rib-bones. “Ketty, you copy?”

“ _Copy, Cap. What’s up?_ ”

“Was there-? I thought the crew were all adults. Were there kids?”

“ _Not really? I’ve been doing some digging,_ ” Ketty said, and Zo pushed past Issac and crouched down carefully, little ready light on her suit-cam blinking, taking pictures as one bulky, armored hand reached out to very, very carefully touch a burnt-amber skull. The bone shivered and went to dust under her touch, and she pulled back with a curse.

“So what’s the news?” Issac asked. He swept his cam over the room, searching, and stopped at a collection of handprints on one wall. Scorch-marks had mostly destroyed them, but three or four were clear, in some kind of dull-yellow paint. They were _tiny_.

“ _The Ark ship was a...a seed ship. Generation ship. It was supposed to hit decel and start coasting toward its destination about fourteen years out. The crew would be woken up and they’d start the baby labs. They had it set up so by the time they got to what they hoped was a habitable planet, there’d be a set of fourteen year old kids already training and ready to go, with another birth-set at thirteen, twelve, eleven...you get the picture. Ready-made colony, with the adult crew there to keep it all organized._ ”

“Well, fuck.” Issac turned his gaze back to the remains. “You see this, Ketty?” he asked, and he heard Wanda’s ‘ _What in fuck is that?_ ’ in the background.

“ _I see it, Cap. Not sure I believe it._ ”

“ _Believe it,_ ” Zo said. She stood up and moved away, the look in her tilted eyes one of horror and pity.

“It looks like...like they woke ‘em up. They started the birthing.”

“ _They could be alive,_ ” Zo said, and Issac groaned softly, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Shit, shit, shit. Yeah, okay. This may be a rescue mission after all. You got _any_ life-signs, Ket? Anything?”

“ _I dunno_ ,” Ketty said, and Issac turned and followed Zo out, back into the corridor - back on track. “ _There’s power, sure, or otherwise there’d be no mayday. But the thing’s shielded six ways to Sunday and there’s a lot of interference. They’ve picked up all kinds of crap on their trip, so.... I just can’t tell. I’m trying to fine the signal down but we’re not really equipped for this, Cap._ ”

“Yeah, I know. Okay. We’re gonna take the next access down, see if we can make it to the bridge level and get to the ship’s comp. On our way.”

“ _Be careful_ ,” Wendy said, and they moved.

 

Downward accesses were mostly clear, though between decks eight and nine they had to find a work around, as something had taken a chunk out of the _Glorianna_ and section seals were in place. Useless, really, since none of this part of the ship had atmo or even power, but perhaps at some point it had saved lives. They got around, eventually, took a break to sit and sip at stale suit-water, panting, and then, finally, they were coming up the corridor to the bridge.

It was a mess. Some consoles seemed to have been cannibalized, and the low, winking light of the mayday signal was the only sign of life. They spent a few minutes poking through the debris, and then Zo settled down into a torn chair, handheld computer on the console and her tool kit spread open beside it, to begin the laborious task of patching into the antiquated comp system. Ketty hadn’t been able to find any of the access codes for the data recorder, but it was made to be read, and Issac had faith she’d crack it.

Meanwhile, Issac made forays down side corridors, finding a ready room, what looked like the ship’s library and map room, and offices for some of the crew. None of them showed much wear or use. A couple of the offices were cluttered with some scraps of paper, a shattered mug or two, as if they’d been awake - alive - and then whatever had knocked the power out and holed the ship had sent them running, never to return. 

There were, thankfully, no more bodies, but Issac found more handprints at different heights - different sizes, some in the dead yellow, some in a watery blue, a couple in what looked like dried blood. Everywhere was frost, darkness, a profound and absolute silence.

“ _Got it!_ ” Zo called, and Issac snapped out of his contemplation of a row of marks that could be some kind of tally and headed back to the bridge. Code and data was scrolling down Zo’s comp screen, too fast to read. “You getting this, Ketty?”

“ _Yeah, getting it. Dumping it into aux store, I’ll get the comp searching keywords soon’s I got the whole thing. You find...anything else?_ ”

Zo looked up at Issac, who shook his head. 

“More nothing. When we’re done here, we’re gonna head aft, to the zones with power. See if...if there’s anything to see.” _More bodies_ , Issac thought, but didn’t say. He really, really hoped not.

 

It took them a good two, hard hours to get to the first section seal with not only an emergency lock-through, but atmo behind it. Atmo and power; a wan, bluish light shone feebly through the scratched porthole in the lock door. Issac stepped up as close as he could, pressing the bubble of his helmet against the porthole, trying to see beyond, but the light was too flat and fuzzy, the corridor beyond too dim. Issac and Zo leaned into the wall by the lock, gulping air and panting. Even with the re-breather and scrubbers in the suit, their oxygen intake was a little lower than normal, and Issac could feel the headache that suit-wear always brought creeping up the back of his skull. 

“Okay, so, we’re at access AW-328. We’re gonna go through. Any progress with the flight data?”

“ _Getting there. Seems like something went wrong a little over a century into the trip. Some kind of damage, or a glitch, it gets really fucked up about then. Seems like...._ ” Ketty’s voice trailed off, and Issac glanced aside at Zo.

“Seems like what?” Issac asked, looking up from cross-wiring the lock door so they could force it open. The access numbers weren’t handily painted nearby, this time.

“ _The ship went live. I mean - the birthing labs, everything. Woke the crew up and started making babies. It looks like...I think it still is._ ” 

“ _Shit_ ”, Zo said, and Issac closed his eyes, taking a long breath. Children - so many children on this ship. For _years_....

“Some of the damage seems...pretty recent. Can you see-? Do you know how many were alive when the fire broke out?”

“ _I’ll...I’ll find out. Had to be a lot, Cap._ ”

“Copy that. Okay, we’re going in.”

“ _Copy_ ,” Ketty said, and Issac twisted the last wires together and jammed his finger down on the button. The door shuddered and shifted and then ground open, jerky and reluctant. Something seemed to be caught in the tracks - ragged bits of plastic sheeting or cloth. Issac shouldered it open the last few inches and then stepped inside, moving over so Zo could fit in after him. The interior button worked, and the door groaned closed with a rumble they could feel through their boots.

The lock chamber cycled and they sagged a little as gravity slowly infiltrated, pulling them down. They clung to the handrails, orientation arrows showing them which way to point their feet. Issac looked at Zo for a long moment, nerving himself; watching her deliberately settle her breathing down, roll her head on her neck inside the helmet. Then she nodded at Issac and he opened the inner door. Atmo pushed at them, a moment’s buffeting, and then they were stepping out and sealing up behind them, staggering a little, off-balance after so long in zero-g. The corridor beyond was bathed in the sickly blue-grey light of the overheads - light that flickered and strobed, never steady.

His suit hummed, taking in an air sample and ticking over as the unit in the small of his back worked. A section of his field of vision lit, HUD scrolling through the suit’s findings even as the transmitted data showed on the _Sally Belle_.

“ _Gravity’s a little less than Earth-normal, not by much. Atmo’s okay. Some contaminants...looks like mostly just dirty systems and leakage, but there’s stuff I can’t identify, either. I’d keep your faceplate down,_ ” Wanda said.

“ _No worries there,_ ” Zo muttered. Issac felt the same - no way was he going to take any part of the suit off. He toggled the exterior audio on and then clicked to lower the volume as a sort of groaning wail invaded the mic.

“ _What the hell?”_

“Sounds like the rotation cylinder’s about gone.” The ship clicked and moaned and creaked, noises no crew ever wanted to hear, and Issac suddenly just wanted to be _done_. Find the dead, _please let there be only dead_ , make the claim, get off this floating tomb and get the hell back home. He started down the corridor, going slow. More plastic sheeting was tangled along the floor in dirty-white drifts, and Issac stepped carefully over it. His heart was pounding and his breath coming too fast, the sweat on his body itching and his legs shaky from the long walk. It didn’t help that once he’d stepped through the lock, his muscles had gone rigid with strain and anticipation. 

“Seems to be deserted so far.”

“ _If the birth labs kept working at capacity, there would be over three thousand kids on that ship. Almost four thousand,_ ” Wendy said, and Issac gritted his teeth and side-stepped a hanging coil of conduit, shuffling his feet through a mess of crumbled ceiling panels.

“ _That many_?” Zo sounded a little panicked, and Issac didn’t blame her. “ _What the hell are they...is there food?_ ”

“ _Seems like the hydro-gardens were put online, but who knows if they worked or if radiation got to ‘em.... There were some food stores on board for the crew, until the gardens got established, and of course baby...stuff._ ” Issac could imagine Ketty’s hand-flail at ‘baby stuff’ - she didn’t like ‘em. “ _Enough standard stuff for a while, at least, for the adults. Powdered, uh, formula and stuff and emergency concentrates._ ”

The corridor branched and Issac looked left and then right and then left again, sure he’d seen something moving. Fucking light, it was tricky - dim and weird and colorless, washing out the dark rust-red of their vac suits to a muddy brown and tricking the eye, shadows seeming to move just at the edges of Issac’s vision.

He turned right and started walking again, pretty sure they were headed for the med-labs. The measured clank of his and Zo’s boots got louder as, mercifully, the rotation-noise faded a little as they moved deeper into the interior of the ship. But there were other noises, too, and Issac found himself jerking and startling, over and over. Aged ventilation fans clacked and rattled, the lights emitted a low sort of buzzing, and the atmo itself seemed to make noise - leaky seals letting air hiss and rush, like something was dragging along the corridor behind them.

He could hear Zo breathing hard, muttering little curses, and he knew she heard them, too; knew it was getting on both their nerves. A skein of frayed wires thumped against the corridor wall and Issac all but screamed.

“ _ **Fuck** , Cap, what-?_”

“Nothing, it’s- Fuck, it’s nothing, it’s just...damn spooky. It’s okay.” Issac twisted around a little to check on Zo, hoping to see her smirking at him, ready to tease. Another shadow moved beyond her and Issac’s gaze jerked to it - dismissed it - and then he was staggering backwards, staring.

“ _Zo_ , there’s something- Fuck, something in the corridor, something _behind_ us!” He fumbled after his sidearm while Zo jerked around with a startled shout.

It advanced, a hunched figure, hands nearly touching the corridor floor, thin limbs and weirdly shaped head. It _scuttled_ , a jerky, stumbling, forward locomotion that seemed ready to spill it on its face, but the thing caught itself every time, glittering eyes in a filth-smeared mask, mouth open on an eerie, breathy kind of _uh, uh, uh_.

“ _Holy **shit**! What is it, what the fuck-?_ ”

“One of them, it’s one of them, has to be-” 

The thing _leaped_ , screaming, and Zo staggered backwards as Issac brought the gun up, pure reflex. A snapping pop of the taser and the figure was down, limbs convulsing. Something slammed into the back of Issac’s suit, ripping, kicking, screaming. Issac could hear Ketty and Wanda yelling from the ship, panicked babble in his ear.

“Get it off, get it off!”

Zo lunged for him and grabbed at the hands that threatened to rip loose umbilicals and breach his suit, and Issac stumbled backward and slammed the thing into the corridor wall. Zo dragged the shuddering body off him and slung it away down the corridor and then they both froze, staring. The corridor ahead and behind was filling with shadows - figures, hunched and staring and _wailing_ , beating their hands - and makeshift weapons - on the walls and floor, a nightmare mob of skeletal monsters.

Issac felt Zo against his back, braced for a fight. He could feel her trembling through the suit. His own hand, holding the useless damn taser wove and swung like a drunk.

“ _What is happening? Report, damnit! Captain, what the **fuck** is going on?_ ” Wendy shouted, and Issac watched as one figure pushed through the crowd, a little taller, a little more deliberate.

“Kids, we found...found the kids. Fuck, they’re...they attacked, we’re...we’re okay, just...fuck. I gotta- gotta deal, here, just shut up a minute,” Issac panted. He toggled the ship-channel to mute, wanting the silence for a moment. They could still hear everything, though that wouldn’t keep Wendy from tearing him a new one.

The kid stepped closer, out of shadow and into a spot of the watery blue-grey light, and Issac swiftly catalogued what he was seeing. Thin limbs, ribs prominent, legs bowed and the teeth that showed in the animal snarl discolored. He was naked - corpse-pale, speckled with bruises and scars. Most of his hair was hacked off in short, uneven tufts, but long locks over the ears and in a crest along the top of his head were plastered with what might be paint, might be...fuck, anything. Matted twists and spikes hung down past his shoulders.

His arms were wound with long lengths of wire, knotted around his fingers and twisted up to his shoulders, across and around his neck like some bizarre and barbaric ornamentation. He had a long piece of jagged, stained metal in one hand, the grip wrapped with strips of plastic. Issac had no doubt it could rip right through skin and muscle. Probably his damn suit, if the kid tried hard enough. 

The eyes in the gaunt, smeared face looked...not entirely sane, over-bright and fevered, a glittering and disconcerting green. His gaze swept over Issac, head to toe, and he lifted the weapon up high, over his head. Issac braced for a leap - a rush - but the kid let out an inhuman bellow, and the mob behind him, behind Issac, quieted.

“ _Cap, what’s going on?_ Zo said, shifting against his back, and Issac held both hands up, palms out, trying to look harmless. 

“There’s a kid...seems like he’s in charge. Just...be ready. Fuck, be ready.”

The kid stepped forward, two, three cautious steps. Issac could hear his breathing now, a little fast, a little wheezy; could see more clearly the scabbed, rough skin, the ragged nails and chapped lips. He cocked his head, staring at Issac, and then leaned forward a fraction and made a low, interrogatory sort of noise.

Issac stared back, heart pounding, and the kid frowned, and then made the noise again. No, he _spoke_. Issac leaned slightly forward, as well, making an encouraging ‘again’ kind of gesture, careful and slow with his empty hand. The kid’s gaze flickered to it and then back to Issac’s face, and he took a deep breath.

“ _Daaa..uc. Daauc_?”

“ _What’s he saying? What the hell?”_ Zo whispered, and Issac made the motion again as he toggled his mic on.

“Say again. Daaa-?”

The kid startled at Issac’s voice, leaned away and then leaned in again, his whole body going tense with some kind of emotion. He was frowning hard. “ _Doooc. **Doooc!**_ ”

“Doo...doc? Are you saying ‘doc’?” The kid made a frustrated, impatient gesture with the jerry-rigged knife and Issac flinched, took a breath. “Doc. Doctor. Is that what you’re saying? _Doc...tor_.”

The kid mouthed the word, and then his whole face transformed, eyes going wide and his mouth curling into a huge, impossible smile.

“ _Dooc-or, dooc-or!_ ” He surged forward and Issac almost shot him, but the kid grabbed Issac’s free hand and yanked, with a rangey strength Issac wasn’t expecting.

“I think he thinks I’m a doctor. Something. Zo, come on, just...keep your taser out.” He toggled the ship off mute, catching Wendy in a stream of half-shouted curses and threats. “ _Wendy!_ I’m sorry, shut up, we’re on the move, we’re okay.”

“ _Fucking hell, Cap, get the fuck out of there! We’ll get the Marines in here, we’re not trained for this!_ ”

“Well fuck, hope you already called _somebody_. Tell Base, tell ‘em what we found. Keep the channel open.”

“ _I don’t like it, Cap,_ ”, Ketty said, and Issac really had to agree. The kid jerked him along, through the mass of kids who crowded around, staring - reaching. Issac let himself be dragged down the corridor, then down another, branching off, and then through a shattered plex wall. The room beyond was dim, only a couple of stuttering lights showing banks of machinery, everything slicked with condensation or...some kind of liquid. A glance aside at the HUD showed the temperature to be warm - fever-high - heat sinks not working right, or not at all, and nowhere for the built-up heat to go. Issac stumbled over something, looked down and then recoiled with a breathless shout of utter horror.

A wizened corpse lay on the floor, the limbs raggedly torn, the skull flattened. Tiny - it was tiny. A _baby_. He heard Zo curse behind him and saw there were more - oh, fuck, so many more, barely strung together as anything recognizably human by decomposing tendons and ragged skin. They looked _chewed_.

The kid leaped up, the weapon swinging and connecting with something, and a light suddenly went on, a whole bank of them stuttering to life. Issac felt his knees buckling, his gorge rising as the kid stood there, grinning that grin, waving the weapon as if to say ‘ _here, see, look at this_ ’.

It was a birth lab. Rows of artificial wombs, some seemingly full of murky fluid, others empty, the apertures gaping down into incubators. And in the incubators...babies. So many, many babies. Here there were three or four, the bottom ones obviously dead, the topmost body weakly moving. Others had older babies, their limbs mired in filth, skin stripping off from pressure sores. Feeding masks were down on some, milky fluid staining their faces. Some had obviously drowned. Little, breathless noises permeated the room. Babies that had cried until they couldn’t anymore, and now simply made a dim, animal sound of agony and need.

One of the kids scuttled out of the shadows and plucked a baby up, careless - turned it and hugged it and stood it on its malformed feet and let go. The baby collapsed, head bouncing off the floor, making a weak, mewling kind of noise. The kid watched it, a feral look on its face. Zo wasn’t cursing now, she was breathing so hard Issac thought she might pass out, and he reached back blindly and bumped his hand against her arm. Fuck, they had to hold it together.

The other kid - _their kid_ \- snarled out a guttural noise and the girl lifted the baby up and settled it back into the incubator, looking chastened. Their kid nodded once, sharply, and turned back to Issac - swept his hand and the weapon out, showing the room, showing what looked like more labs beyond, a corridor crowded with labs, with bodies, with babies....

“ _Dooc-or! Dooc-or,_ ” he said again, and his spidery, broken-nailed hand reached out and patted Issac’s arm, tugged him forward again, urgent and anticipatory. His meaning was obvious, his message clear.

Issac was the doctor, here were the kids, now he needed to get to work. Issac stared into that manic green gaze and wished, harder than he’d ever wished for anything in his life, that he had a gun - a real gun - and enough ammo to end every miserable life in this grotesque, rotting womb.

“Wendy. Get Base. Tell ‘em code red, tell ‘em extreme medical emergency, fuck, tell ‘em...” Issac toggled on the high-def camera, and heard Wendy and Ketty both react to the slow pan he did with his helmet, images suddenly crystal-clear instead of the flat, low-rez auto cams. “Send ‘em that. Get somebody out here. Get _everybody_ out here. Fucking now.”

“ _Dooc-or, Dooc-or, Dooc-or,_ ” the kid said, happy - proud of himself - grinning and turning in a half circle, his foot casually shoving a ragged, half-eaten corpse away into the shadows. “ _Dooc-or!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2099 – the year the Ark ship was sent out.  
> 2229 - the year Jensen and his sibs are ‘born’.  
> 2241 – the year the Glorianna /Jensen is found
> 
>  _Sally Belle_ , deep space miner/prospector.  
> Issac Harvey - Captain, motorman and roustabout, medic grade C  
> Wanda Ri – Pilot, communications, toolpusher  
> Zo Kenneska - geologist, scan, driller  
> Ketty Hodges– geologist, legal, driller


	2. Chapter 2

_**Qemuel**_ \- Destroyed by God (Jensen’s Story)

 

_By 2236, the ANGEL system has been refined, streamlined – and militarized. Unlike the single-purpose use the system was originally designed for, militarized systems use a cocktail of compounds to enhance speed, strength, endurance and stamina. Coupled with articulated, hydraulic-assisted armor, it was soon obvious that normal human bodies could not function without sustaining repeated, crippling damage. A regimen of drugs and stem-cell implants was implemented, and the new ‘super soldiers’ grew denser bones, stronger muscle fibres and connective tissues, and nerves that reacted at three times the speed. It was also discovered that this regimen had to be maintained and refreshed, or the body would begin to reject the new growth. Other compounds were added to help the soldiers deal with their tripled or quadrupled sensory input. A second port was added at the base of the spine to facilitate different drug mixtures and faster delivery of bulk amounts. The delivery net, it was noted, continued to grow after implantation. It was named ArchANGEL, to distinguish it from the simpler, civilian system used extensively by the medical community._

 

_They say you don’t dream in the Between, when ships are neither here nor there. You strap in, drug down, and ride the Between unconscious - helpless and naked in the void. They say you don’t dream, but Jensen always does. He dreams of cold and grey and pain. He dreams of an endless, grinding hunger, and air that stinks of death. He dreams of himself, filthy and aching and mute, static-noise of nothing in his head. When he wakes up, he does anything - anything at all - to make himself forget._

 

2294 - Orbiting the red dwarf _Gliese 581_ in the Libra constellation.

 

The planet was called _Gl 581 g_ , or so they’d been told. It didn’t matter, it didn’t need a name. Five called it _Judecca_ , but Five spent too much time plugged in, and got funny ideas. Jensen didn’t call it anything. It was just a ball of ice and rock, with a howling wind and a dozen or so Stick bases sunk deep into bedrock, and Jensen was here to dig them out; him and his Angels. He crouched on a ledge of rock halfway down a sheer cliff, armored fingers sunk deep, claws keeping him steady against the wind. 

His HUD showed him his squad all around him, green-glowing dots in a double-V formation. Five’s squad was directly above, and Jinx and Kee were across the valley, pinpricks of yellow, blue and white. Morgan was out there somewhere, keeping an eye on them with the LT, cozy in their dropship, keeping tabs on everybody, ready to call down the regular troops once the Angels breached the Stick bunker. Other platoons down-the-well would be hopscotching across the surface, hitting every bunker and installation they’d found. Total destruction.

Jensen chinned his suit-mic, three hard clicks, and a moment later got double-clicks back from Five, Jinx and Kee. All ready-steady, and he sent that back to his squad, an impulse through the ‘net-com, alerting them. He could feel his mouth stretching wide in a teeth-baring grin inside the helmet. His armor flexed around him, reading his tension, his intent. He felt the whisper of vibration that was the go-pack kicking in, and a moment later his system flooded with adrenals and endorphins and his jaw locked, teeth clenched tight.

 _Go, go, go!_ His command was subliminal, subvocal, and instantaneous, and as Jensen leapt, he saw every colored tell-tale leaping with him. He bounded down the cliff-face in huge leaps, claws and cleats catching and holding and releasing, suit ailerons lifting and flaring at his shoulders, biceps, ribs and thighs to keep him balanced, silver-foil feathers with razor edges. Around him, the rest of the platoon flowed like a wave, all but flying down the cliff, huge gouges left in the rock, chips and dust flying, a howling over the net-com of thirty-five voices in full-throated anticipation. Thirty-six, because Jensen was screaming along with them, the shocks of his descent nothing through the armor, the drugs, the _desire_. Tracers and live rounds flew past, streams of yellow-orange in the HUD as the bunkers started up a defensive barrage. But his Angels were too fast, too agile - too _good_ \- only baptized by a rain of debris from the pulverized cliff face, untouched otherwise.

They hit the valley floor at near sub-sonic speeds and Jensen pushed up and off and leapt again, skimming the ground as he ran, hands coming down to steady and push, helmet up, fixed on their target. _My gazehounds,_ Morgan called them, grinning that crooked grin of his. But they were fallen angels, they were _Enim_ , and _Naphaim_ and _Gibborim_ ; Terrifying, Weakeners, Giants. They were unstoppable.

The Stick bunker was blood-red in his HUD, and Jensen saw the lines of his squads sweeping forward, precise and perfect, _Gibborim_ to the fore in their heavier armor, with their bunker-busters and hydraulic spikes, ready to crack the bunker like an egg.

The _Naphaim_ came next, less bulky, with actinic fire and single-line EMPs to sear and disable. Then Jensen came, then the _Enim_ , sleek and streamlined, with titanium APDS rounds and plasma-pulse rifles with the capacity to chew Stick armor and bodies to rags. The first of the _Gibborim_ weapons hit like a fist of the gods, and Jensen felt the shock of it through the rock underfoot, through the dense, murky atmo. He felt it in feedback through the net-com, a body-wide shudder.

He screamed aloud, propelling himself forward into fire, smoke and chaos, his squad around him, their voices in his head, resounding in his skull. The bunker was a crater now, and the spindly, weirdly articulated bodies of Stick soldiers were tossed across the rubble like trash. A lock opened and more soldiers surged up - a black, skeletal wave - and the rifle that was part and parcel of the arm and shoulder of Jensen’s suit snapped into being in his hand.

An impulse - a nano-second’s thought - and the plasma bolt shot out, striking the nearest Stick in a shower of white-hot sparks. The Stick fell, kicking, dead in an instant as Jensen vaulted the body and plowed forward. Another explosion came, somewhere down deep, and the shattered bunker heaved and lifted, and then settled again. 

_Dig them out, bring them up_ \- impulse and command - and the platoon moved as one entity, sinking shaft-cutter bits down into the rubble and sending the EMPs in after, the _Gibborim_ shifting chunks of bunker out of the way, and the _Naphaim_ scouring it clear with blasts of incandescent fire. A crack in the rock at Jensen’s feet showed weak light - tool-cut tunnels and shadows, moving - and Jensen keened in sheer, reflexive blood-lust. 

“ _Helel_ , bunker is breached, we’re going in, copy!”

“ _Negative, Jensen._ ” Morgan’s voice was rough and brittle, fury barely held in check. “ _They want the Federals to clean it out, think they got intel down there. Finish your sweep and report back, over._ ”

Jensen stood panting on the crumbling lip of the fissure, his entire body shaking in minute tremors, his go-pack pumping in potassium and sodium and all the other minerals he’d depleted in the minutes since plunging off the cliff face. It spiced his blood with opiates and stimulants and heat, making it impossible for him to be still. No fucking way were they going to retreat now, not while there were still Sticks left. Jensen lifted his head, impulse fired through the net-com, and saw his troops still and turn and flow toward him, inexorable.

“I see troops massing, long-range weapons and bio-suits, we need to contain and nullify. Going in, off-link, out,” he snapped. He shut down the link and took a shuddering breath and then, as one, thirty-six _Nephilim_ dove from the fissure’s edge like swimmers into the sea, the metallic fins of stabilizing ailerons glittering as they fell. 

The ice-rock-rubble of the crater heaved again and then was still as the first Federal dropships touched down. 

 

The dropship _Helel_ docked to the _Tiamat_ with a clank and a sigh, and Morgan was on his feet before the all-clear had even sounded, harrying them up and out of the flight webbing, out of the ship all together. They pounded down the ramp, heading for the ready room, eager to skin out of the armor.

At the foot of the ramp, Morgan caught Jensen’s shoulder with his own armored hand, and Jensen rounded on him, lips drawing back in a snarl and one hand coming up, rifle half-constructed before his brain caught up and put it away again.

“Stand fucking down,” Morgan growled.

“Don’t fucking touch me. Sir,” Jensen snarled back, and they stood there for a moment, unmoving, as the disembarking platoon pushed past and Five and a couple others milled around nearby, ready to come between them if the aftermath of the fight - the drugs - was too much.

“You went overboard, down there. Tore the damn place up.”

“So says the Morrígan.” Morgan was known for his scorched-earth policy. Jensen didn’t see the point of this conversation, not when he was still flying on the after-effects of the go-pack, not when he still wanted to _moverungo_.

Morgan scowled. “The Federals are on the LT’s ass, which means the LT is chewing _my_ ass. They’re afraid you destroyed intel, loused up their mission statement.”

“We’re better than that,” Jensen said. “We didn’t take out anything they needed.” He was sure of that. Pretty sure. The last six fucking hours were a damn blur and he did _not_ want to be standing here talking about it. He was itching inside his armor - he’d swear there was blood in there, ash. Jerking and shifting and sending a hundred half-realized signals to its on board computer, the whole suit rattled around him, joints clicking and plates lifting, ailerons flaring out again and again like the agitated wings of a raptor. He felt like he was going to shatter, and Morgan wouldn’t survive that, half-armored as he was. The Stick base had been more than a base, it had been a fucking _settlement_ , and the lowest levels, the most heavily defended, had held a crèche, full of tiny Stick babies in nests. Nests that were no match for sticky fire incendiaries. Thank fuck Five always had a stash - had dumped the little twist of pale-blue powder into Jensen’s open mouth before they’d climbed back up out of the pit. Just a little something so Jensen could stop _shaking_.... “Morgan, fuck’s sake, let me _go_.”

Morgan sighed, scrubbed his hand back over the brushy inches of his buzz-cut with a whispery rasp that made Jensen twitch. Morgan’s left arm was polycarbonate and circuitry, a relic of a particularly bad wound from years ago. “Do as you’re told next time, Corporal.”

“ _Sir_ ,” Jensen said, and twisted on his heel, striding rapidly away, Five and two others - Kerrin and Max - falling in behind him, on his six, buffering. Jensen heaved a sigh of relief as the ready room door thumped shut behind them and they were _home_. No officers allowed, not now, not in the adrenaline crash that was coming for all of them - not in the aftermath of what they’d just done, and the extra little hit Jensen (and Five and Sous and Perin) had taken. Morgan knew fucking better than to get in his space immediately post-mission, but there he’d been, presuming on an intimacy long cold. Bastard. Three missions into his conscription, bad intel and Marines on a hair-trigger had sent the whole operation spinning out of control. They’d lost three Nephilim, and Jensen had been on stand-down for five weeks, healing, resting in Morgan’s bunk, rolling over for him because he was shiny and new, then, and sure he’d fucked up. He’d needed the reassurance. He didn’t need it any more, but Morgan didn’t seem to want to let it go.

Umbilicals and special hooks hung in clusters from the web of struts above, and as each soldier stepped onto the pad below, the suit called them down, plugging in and suspending so that when the suit un-seamed and peeled open, it could stand on its own, ready for scrub-down, repair - whatever was needed.

But that would come later. Much later. Right now, they needed something else. Naked, hairless bodies slipped out of their metal sheaths, heading straight to the dispensary on the wall. They stood on the X so the robot-arm could strip out the go-pack and plug in the down-pack, a little bubble of chemicals the system would mix up and disperse, opiates and nutrients and stuff to take the go-pack edge off. Stuff they _needed_ , or they’d be tearing into each other like wild animals, and coming down like the junkies they all were.

Jensen got his pack and then got under a free shower head, bumping elbows with Five on one side and Sinna on the other. Hot water like a blessing poured over him, and he shut his eyes and just braced there until the flicker-flash of memory caught him. He jolted out of it and reached for the soap dispenser, fingers bumping into Sinna’s on the same mission, a little touch from Five on his hip. He could tell what both women wanted, but he wasn’t in the mood for that this time. Not after the mission; not after his run-in with Morgan. Fucking _Jeff_.

This time, Jensen wanted to be pounded straight through a wall, but, as hard-core as both women were, he still topped them by a good six inches, and it just wasn’t going to be _enough_. He scrubbed the saline gel off his skin - exuded by the suit to give the dozens of sensors one hundred percent conductivity - rinsing off goop and suds to reveal the lines of tattooing that twisted around and around, from knuckles to biceps to throat and across his chest and shoulder blades. He hadn’t felt _right_ \- hadn’t felt like himself - until he’d gotten that work, slender lines of red and green, blue and yellow and black like plaited wires. They were part of him in a way he didn’t like to think about, a jerky, monotone memory that made his stomach twist even as he knew he had to have them. 

Jensen ducked out of the water, giving Five a little crooked grin. She nodded and hauled Sinna in by the back of her neck, mouth to mouth and hip to hip with suds still sliding down their legs. They were fine without him. Jensen snagged a towel out of the bin and wiped his face dry, then ran the soft cloth over his freshly shaved head and across the down-pack socketed snugly into the port at the base of his skull. He did a fast tooth-brushing at the row of steel sinks and drank a mouthful of flat, cold water as he watched, in the mirror, Malik and Kane behind him, over in a corner. They were already halfway there, Malik crowding Kane’s smaller frame against the wall, his mouth making a bruise on Kane’s pale throat, both of them hard, hips doing a slow push and grind that made Jensen’s heart pound.

Jensen swung wide, so they’d both see him coming, and stepped up close. He put a hand on the dark skin of Malik’s back, a fingertip tracing the metal edge of the lower port, the raised whorls and dots of his scarring. Malik arched and pushed back, lifting his mouth from Kane’s throat.

“ _Qemuel_ ,” he rumbled, and Jensen shivered violently. Qemuel - his battle-name, his Angel name. Hearing it still sent a shock over him, made his skin pebble and his cock throb between his thighs.

“Xaphan,” Jensen said. He could see the speculative light in Malik’s gaze, and the way Kane had gone from pliant to predatory in an eye-blink. “I...need-”

“What do you need?” Kane asked, rough-voiced, one hand lifting away from Malik’s hip and latching onto Jensen’s, pulling him in. Their bodies were fever hot - hard with muscle, roped with scars both decorative and not, inked with tattoos - and Jensen groaned, shoving his rapidly hardening cock against Malik’s thigh.

“Need it to _hurt_ ,” Jensen said, and Malik laughed and snaked his head forward, taking Jensen’s mouth in a kiss that was more teeth than tongue while Kane’s hand found his balls and squeezed. Malik tasted like toothpaste and the chemical-lemon by-product tang of the go-pack, pharmaceutical decay. It overpowered the ghosts of char and ash Jensen swore he could still taste, and he pushed into it hungrily, little noise of pure want escaping him.

“We got you, Jensen,” Kane reassured him. “We got you.” They pushed him and turned him and all three of them stumbled toward the barracks, toward the dim, padded spaces already half-full of the rest of them, of _Nephilim_ in pairs and triads and quads, rutting and twisting, moaning and breathing. Coming down, letting go, they were proving to themselves with tongues and fingers and cocks and cunts that they were _alive_ , all alive, all here, all safe. Kane sprawled down onto a wide, cushioned bench, someone’s feet near his hip, and Malik wrapped himself around Jensen from behind, dragging his blunt nails down Jensen’s ribs, his mouth at Jensen’s ear.

“You’ll scream,” he promised, and then he shoved Jensen down, half on Kane, half on upholstery, and followed right behind. 

 

R1A1 was a refinery...somewhere. Jensen hadn’t been paying attention - fuck, no one had. Why they were even told those kinds of pointless details, Jensen couldn’t figure, but they were. It was there, Jensen knew, on his hand-held, the one he only ever used for games or pictures, because he’d never gotten the hang of reading and the briefing packet was a huge collection of useless squiggles and some numbers and not enough images.

He mostly paid attention to the pictures and schematics and relied on Jinx to read out anything important, a little trick they’d figured when about eight Nephilim had turned up illiterate. Jensen just told Morgan that it worked better to hear it out loud, as a group, and since Morgan wanted them to do whatever worked....

Some raider outfit had blitzed the refinery and wrecked their transmitter - although, not before an SOS had gone out - and was now crouching there, blockaded in and under siege, trapped. There’d been a failsafe that someone had gotten to, shutting everything down, sealing off most of the refinery and locking the docked ships in, and so it was either sit there or rip their own docking rigs out getting away. For six fucking months, real time, they’d stagnated there, waiting while the Angels and Marines were in transit.

“Why’d they not hit the fuckin’ self-destruct,” Sinna muttered, and a low chorus of agreement went around the room. 

“Here’s why,” Jinx said, angling his hand-held, one narrow, black eyebrow lifting. “Fucking thing was a month out from capacity - it’s worth a couple trillion. Bet they didn’t make the destruct section-specific - they don’t wanna lose that pay out.”

“‘N’ they think we be _better_?” Kee muttered, and a low laugh went around the room from bodies sprawled half on each other, half on the cushions. 

“Guess they’re cutting their losses. ‘S why they didn’t let their fly-boys try anything, either,” Jinx said, referring to the fleet of five Company ships, about thirty security personnel in all, that patrolled this bit of Company space. Jinx scrolled through a few more pages, frowning, and then tapped up a holo display, so an image hovered in blue-white bars of frozen light above their heads. “Says this is where most of the miners are, and the raiders, too.” The habitat module glowed, pinpricks of green where long-range scans had found lifesigns. “Pretty much the only place big enough for ‘em all.”

They all examined the holo, and Jensen got up on his knees, looking closer. He gestured for Jinx to rotate it - enlarge - and pointed swiftly to five spots on the diagram. 

“If we put charges here and here...see? This whole section comes away.”

“Yeah.” Five was up, too, peering closer and checking her own hand-held. “Leaves the main processor intact...most of the refined stuff, too. Just cuts the raiders off.”

“It’s gone, f’we do that. Decompression,” Kee pointed out, and she was right. That section was storage, admin and habitat, and while it would have section seals to prevent any small hull breach from becoming a big one, it wasn’t built to withstand complete, explosive uncoupling from the main unit. But miners were non-essentials, as far as the Company was concerned - easy to replace and they’d all signed waivers, had supposedly been told everything they needed to know about their life expectancy, how safe it was to bring their families and make a life here in the vast Dark. 

“Looks like that’s a go, then,” Jensen said. _Demons_ , he knew, were being tasked with taking out the raiders’ ships, and the _Seraphim_ with securing the refinery itself, and taking out any stragglers. _Dominions_ were going to go in disguised as a company ship, offering a deal - the most boring of the jobs, but somebody had to distract them.

“ _Squad leaders to main briefing, on the double,_ ” Morgan announced, his low rumble of a voice making the com crackle. The holo vanished with a tap of Jinx’s finger as he, Kee, Five and Jensen untangled and stood up, straightening twisted hems and brushing themselves down. Off-duty for all of them was loose-fitting, navy blue cotton trousers and undershirts, though everyone at some point added some small item of personal significance. Jensen habitually wore a thin, knitted sweater, one he’d had...well, for a very long time. It was too big, hanging down to mid-thigh, and too thin to do much more than provide a tactile comfort, but that’s all he needed from it.

They rolled out of their section and down a corridor, crowding into the lift with the squad leaders from _Archangel_ , nostrils flaring and skin shivering at the scent and feel of foreign bodies - outsiders. _Archangels_ all had facial tattoos, swirling lines of blue and silver from their shaved hairlines down. The designs came forward, around their eyes and down their cheekbones. Jensen didn’t like the narrow, predatory look it gave them. He bared his teeth in silent antipathy and the _Archangel_ nearest him did the same, a hissing sound of pure displeasure rasping between her teeth.

The lift opened before it could go any further, and _Nephilim_ and _Archangels_ stalked down the main corridor separately, nerves going tighter and muscles bunching as they came into main briefing and spotted _Demons_ and _Seraphim_ already there. Morgan shifted between them immediately, herding his platoon off to one side while other Gunnery Sergeants did the same and the _Tiamat_ crew exchanged looks of exasperated irritation. The wide, transparent rectangle of the holo unit in the middle of the room was already activated with a wire frame of the refinery, with different colored pinheads of light showing accesses, power sources, miners and raiders. Their LT was there, Lieutenant Wisdom, his face set in its usual scarred, sombre mask. Two sides of the unit were taken up with officers, _Tiamat_ crew and mining Company suits, and Jensen felt himself bristling. 

“Settle the fuck down,” Morgan snapped. “Pay attention.” 

Jensen had the gun-metal grey sleeves of his sweater pulled right down over his fists, rubbing the thin, stretchy material between his knuckles, one hand against the other. His teeth gritted together, spastic, and his gaze leapt from person to person in the room, cataloging every twitch and turn and breath. The others crowded in closer, no calmer, and then Morgan tapped something into his hand-held and they all relaxed as a brief burst of ultrasound, keyed to the ANGEL systems, triggered a hit of serotonin. The urge to sink his teeth and fingernails into a living throat and _rip_ ebbed away, and Jensen could finally concentrate on the briefing.

He listened as the Major gave them a brief rundown of the situation, her voice emotionless, her whole demeanor radiating an icy calm, while the _Tiamat_ crew sweated and fidgeted and tried not to look too closely at the Angels. They radiated unease that made the Angels shift restlessly, keyed onto their fear; the serotonin hit only went so far. 

When it came to his turn, Jensen outlined his squad’s mission, and acknowledged that whoever was in that section, unsuited, would probably die. A Company man - all suit and slick hair and fashionable, glowing optics on little frames over his eyes - mouthed some kind of bullshit about doing their best, preserving life, acceptable casualties. Jensen showed him a mouthful of teeth and the man looked hastily away, flushing.

“Lying shit,” Five whispered. The miners and their families would die, but nobody would care, because the _refinery_ would be saved, and the raiders gone, and the money would keep flowing. Jensen rocked on his toes a little and stared hard at the back of Morgan’s neck, hoping for another hit of the ultrasound. Morgan ignored him.

“Right. We’ve got sixteen hours for transit and prep. Platoons, you know your assignments.” The Major’s gaze swept over the room, lingering for a moment on the Angels. “I expect the all-ready at...twenty-two hundred hours, understood?” Agreement came back from around the room, platoon leaders and squad leaders, and the Major gave a brief nod before turning her back. “Dismissed. Platoon leaders, keep me apprised.”

“Let’s go, on the double,” Morgan said, and the _Nephilim_ went, striding quickly away down the corridor and back to the lift. Morgan stepped in behind them and slapped the ‘door closed’ button, fast, so the _Demons_ following would have to wait for the next one. It was a relief to get off the lift, to get back to their section, their dorm, their _own_. It smelled right, the light was right. The walls stopped being industrial grey and instead were covered in looping graffiti and muted swirls of color, an ongoing project that took up the down-time and marked this as their territory. 

“Squad leaders, you know your assignments. I want you to get on suit prep and weapons detail _now_ , and get it done. Make sure you double-check those seals, we don’t want any leaks.” Morgan ran a hand back through the inch-long black and silver hair on his head, scrubbing a little with his meat hand. He looked tired. “I want this to go down fast and neat with no damn mess. If you think you can seal any of the raiders or miners into a secure area, do it, but they are not the priority. Understood?” 

“Yessir,” Jensen muttered, and Jinx did, and then the rest, a ragged chorus. 

“Brief your squads. Get a move on. Let’s _go_.” He turned on his heel and left, and the _Nephilim_ surged up, surrounding Jensen and the others, quick, light touches confirming they were there, back, part of the whole again.

“All right, you heard him!” Jensen raised his voice and his troops fell silent, oriented to him, listening. “Get on suit prep and make it perfect, people. We’re gonna free fall from the _Tiamat_ to the refinery, stealth mode, and set our charges. There’s three areas in that zone where we can ride it out with minimal exposure There’s a couple tugs attached to the refinery itself, _Seraphim_ are gonna pilot those out and catch us.” Jensen grinned, humorless. “Apparently, they figure they can rehabilitate that section, not have to construct a whole new one for the next batch of miners.”

“That’s so practical,” Sinna said, her voice high-pitched, full of mock adulation, and Jensen barked a dry laugh.

“That’s suits for you. Let’s get going, _Nephilim_.”

“Sir, yessir...yessir...sir.” The squads moved, heading to the ready room for suit prep, and another wave of ultrasound rolled through the room, serotonin and dopamine hitting their systems seconds later. Jensen grinned fiercely at the overhead, knowing Morgan was watching, rewarding him - them - for good behavior. Loose and happy and ready to move, Jensen pushed in along with the others, finding his armor in the dangling rows of suits and calling the comp terminal up from the floor, activating the first in a long list of chained tests to be sure every system was up and running. There was a scorch mark along one thigh that he didn’t even remember getting on their last mission, and he rubbed a thumb over it and wondered if he’d have time to repaint.

Someone hit a switch and music flooded the room, loud and raucous and full of random ultrasounds that would have them all leaping and snarling and _ready_ when the time came. Unapproved and banned, but - out here - overlooked. 

Jensen shouted the chorus along with the rest of his Angels as his suit twitched to life, gleaming black and copper and vivid yellow-green, the polished edges of the ailerons silver in the overheads. It was his gorgeous, deadly alter-ego, his battle-name stenciled on the back, Sinna’s weird, recurved designs acid-etched down the chest plate. His body was already humming with adrenaline and arousal; go-time always gave him a hard on.

This was gonna be good.

 

The refinery looked dead. It drifted, dark and listing, just high enough above the plane of the dust belt to escape any real damage. A light or two shone down near where the raiders were docked - three ancient hulks cobbled together from spare parts and spit, bristling with illegal arms. The other two were on a tight patrol to the zenith and nadir of the refinery, and it had just been their very bad luck that someone had been awake when they’d stormed in, com-disrupters flaring and every jammer going full bore.

So they’d been stuck for six months real-time, sniping at the Company fleet, protected by Company greed, the fleet leashed as they were by the rules, the suits, the _money_.

A stray shot or two had holed the refinery in a couple spots - nothing too bad, section seals had contained it - but it added to the overall air of an abandoned, lifeless hulk. Jensen scanned the image on his HUD and felt his heart kick, a little too fast, a little too hard.

“Simmer down, Jensen,” Morgan’s voice purred over the link, and Jensen flexed his fingers on the safety rail, armored feet magnetized to the narrow catwalk extruded by the _Tiamat_ just below the lock access. His squad was strung out beside him - Five behind, then Jinx, then Kee - backs to the reassuring bulk of their ship, faces out to space. All waiting on the signal so they could detach and dive, minute avatars of death against the refinery Leviathan. 

“Give us the go,” Jensen muttered, single-channel only, and he could hear Morgan’s rasping laugh in his bones. 

“ _Patient, be patient, my gazehound._ ” His voice caressed, and Jensen shivered, ailerons flaring. Then his voice changed, switching to all-channel. “ _Dominions are engaging-_ ” Morgan’s voice droned on, status and count-down, and then the HUD lit up like a bomb, explosions of light and data sleeting across the interface, and Morgan’s voice was growling in fury. “ _Fuck, they fired. Nephilim, **go, go, go**_!”

Jensen snarled the command before Morgan was even done talking, the suit’s mag-lock coming off and his hand opening - propulsion jets firing as he and his Angels peeled away from the _Tiamat_ and flew. They arched out and away, the _Tiamat_ receding and the refinery bulking in their forward view, HUD and real-time display overlapping and then matching, a flare of blue-white as everything lined up and the go-pack kicked in with an extra burst of adrenals. Off to the zenith and about ten degrees to port, the _Archangel_ ship and four of the raiders were exchanging fire, blips of light in the periphery of the HUD, the suit tracking and then ignoring bursts of debris, the internal AI collating and refining data, pinpointing their targets.

 _Gibborim_ were handling the charges, _Naphaim_ backing them and providing cover as _Enim_ secured the three maintenance hatches they’d found. Three ways into the habitat module itself, so they could ride out the decoupling explosions and secure the unit for the _Seraphim_ to latch on and tow it back to the refinery. It was a weirdly shaped, clunky module that would surely spin out of true when the charges went off, and Jensen wanted his troops wedged in tight somewhere, safe.

He could feel and hear the platoon chatter over the suit ‘net as, one by one, they lighted on the module’s pitted skin. Aluminum, poly-composite and glassine tiles all showed the wear of a dirty system and indifferent maintenance, and Jensen pulled himself rapidly, hand over hand, to the hatch that was half-hidden behind a bulging array of antennae and cameras. 

He saw Sinna in the HUD, coming down parallel to him, clinging at the top of the hatch while Jensen synched his suit to the module’s system and told it to open up.

The door shivered beneath him before lifting up and sideways, and he slipped in around the edge before it was done moving, Sinna darting in behind him. The gravity was off - they were only tugged weakly toward the floor, and Jensen drifted, calculating. The hatch and bay behind it was big enough for the bulky repair pod stored in the wall to detach and maneuver easily, but that was about it. They’d have to get the inner hatch open and move through into the module itself - no way a dozen of them in armor could fit into the bay.

“We’ll have to lock through, half inside, half out here.” Jensen pushed away from the wall and moved to the inner hatch. He could see a dim corridor through the pressure window, clean and empty. 

“ _Charges set,_ ” was coming over the ‘net, one after the other, and Kee and Five had secured their own maintenance bays and were just waiting on the rest to come in. 

“I’m going through,” Jensen said, more for Morgan than for Sinna, who could feel his intent through the ‘net, could hear it in her head like her own thoughts. She keyed the outer hatch closed so Jensen could open the inner one, keeping the module’s atmo in place even if they didn’t need it. Jensen stepped through and the hatch slid shut behind him, and he felt the first of the _Naphaim_ at the outer door, waiting on Sinna to open up. 

The corridor was short, barely three meters, and there were emergency holds at intervals, recessed into the walls - a good place to ride out the explosions. Jensen stalked forward, his HUD showing him faint traceries of circuitry and wiring beneath the dull-white corridor sheathing. His suit-mic wasn’t picking up anything but the faint hum of ventilation fans and the metallic clank of his own booted feet. At the end of the corridor was a T-junction. Left was a section seal, truncating that way less than a meter in. Right was an open corridor and...a person.

Jensen reacted and his armor with him, arm coming up and rifle forming in his grip, targeting array pinpointing the killshot. The figure froze, eyes huge in a gaunt, dirty face and Jensen...couldn’t move. He could feel his heart pounding, harder and faster. He could feel his lungs working, but maybe not working _right_ , because he wasn’t getting enough air, he _wasn’t_ ; just tiny sips of oxygen that were making him feel light-headed, his vision dimming, going to a tunnel, sparking black, the ragged figure the only clear thing in his sight.

Dimly, Jensen could hear Morgan on the com, saying something, insistent and furious, and Jensen could do nothing but stare at the thin, shabby figure that was staring back, frozen in a darkened doorway. A moment later, Jensen groaned, the armor shuddering around him as the suit shot a new compound into his system. In seconds, Jensen’s blood stream was awash in a complex mix of mood-stabilizers, tranqs, and adrenals, and Jensen dragged in a huge lungful of air, vision snapping back, his head clearing, rush kicking in. He growled, furious at himself, and shook his head sharply, the armor rattling.

“ _Jensen, you back with me? **Report** , damnit!_” 

“Yeah, yes - yessir. Civilian personnel spotted.”

“ _Sir, we’re on count - twenty seconds._ ” Sinna’s voice in his ear brought him back all the way and Jensen let the rifle retreat into the armor, turned and strode away, back to the corridor, back to his squad. He turned the corner and joined the five _Nephilim_ that were locked into the handholds already; braced for the explosion, braced for decompression. 

He curled his armored fists around the last handhold and locked down, sent the mental impulse to the mag-locks in the armor’s feet to seal him to the corridor floor, and dismissed from his mind the scarecrow figure of the dirty, starving child that was surely about to die.

 

“So what the fuck was _that_?” Morgan growled, and Jensen jerked away from his grip, same damn scene playing out all over again, except this time Jinx and Kane and Sinna were shouldering in between them, shoving Jensen back _hard_ , their own suits flaring and chattering, too keyed up to be still or to care. Five or six others milled near the ready room door, hovering uncertainly, their drug-hyped senses reacting to the tension - feeding it right back through the ‘net - and Jensen could feel the rest of the platoon reacting, moving. Not good, not good, but oh, so comforting.

“Not fucking now, just back _off_!” Kane snapped, and Morgan glared at him, polycarbonate hand resting on the grip of his service weapon.

“Get out of my face, soldier, or I’ll take you out.”

“You can fucking try,” Kane snarled, hand coming up, tell-tale flashing amber to green as his gauntlet taser powered up. It could kill a man, you hit him just right, and Kane could put his armored fist through Morgan’s ribcage, if he wanted to - fry Morgan’s heart in point zero zero one second.

Morgan’s own teeth were bared. He took one step back and his meat hand came up, flare of blue-white light that hit Kane and sent him, seizing, to the floor. Kill-switch, KO, the only thing that would stop an Angel without killing them. It glowed in Morgan’s palm like a star, looped around his fingers, and Jensen vaulted Kane’s shuddering body as Jinx and Sinna used their own armored bodies to brace Kane’s.

One good shove, before Morgan could act, sent him slamming into the wall hard enough to dent it. Morgan bounced off it with a snarl, teeth bared. He unholstered his weapon, his grip activating the power cell, a little click and whine that the suit mics caught, and every soldier in the room reacted to the flare of _fightdefenddanger_ through the net. Morgan’s polycarbonate thumb moved, sliding the safety off, and eight rifles formed and lifted, every soldier but Kane targeting Morgan, the metallic scrape of armor and rifle parts shivering through the room like a snake’s hiss.

The barrel of Morgan’s weapon hovered, inches from Jensen’s face, and even the suit couldn’t close the faceplate fast enough, if Morgan fired. “I said - what the _fuck_ was that? Corporal.”

“Fuck you, Morgan,” Jensen said, his voice soft as a whisper and edged like steel, and Jensen swore he saw Morgan’s finger twitch on the trigger.

“Morgan!” The bark of a baritone voice cracked like a whip and everyone in the room jerked in reaction. “Stand the hell _down_ , all of you!” It was the LT, Lieutenant Wisdom. His round, dark face was set in a furious scowl, his hands nowhere near his own weapon, and the Angels obediently shifted to ready-rest stance, rifles sliding away, arms coming down. Morgan _didn’t_ , and Wisdom rounded on him, his dark eyes narrowed. 

“I gave an order, Gunnery Sergeant,” he said. His voice wasn’t even raised, but the fury and the steel behind it were evident, and Morgan shot one wild, furious look his way before letting his weapon drop. Wisdom spoke to the room at large, but kept his gaze fixed on Morgan. “ _Nephilim_ , you did an outstanding job. Stand down. We’ll be in-system for at least three days, or until this mess is contained.” He finally looked around at them, one long glance followed by a crisp nod. “After that, we’re bound for Reveille. Gunnery Sergeant, my office.” He turned on his heel and stalked away. Morgan slammed his weapon back into its holster and then he, too, was gone, gunshot crack of his boot heels on the corridor floor echoing behind him.

Jinx and Sinna hauled Kane to his feet and Kerrin got a gauntleted hand on Jensen’s shoulder, pulling him back. Jensen grinned fiercely at the impulse through the net - ownership and affection and protection. _His Angels_. Turning around, he herded them all through to the ready room and the rest of the platoon that waited just inside the door, anxious, on edge.

“Fucker. Asshole. What in _fuck_ -?” Kane snarled, his voice ragged, and Jensen pushed in close and gave him a hard, biting kiss.

“You stupid bastard,” Jensen muttered, Kane’s lips against his, and Kane kissed him back, drawing blood. 

“Got your back, Qemuel. Always,” Kane murmured, and it was Jensen sending it out this time, the pack-feeling, nest-feeling, _love_ , that hooked in and never let go. 

“Sariel,” Jensen murmured back, and then he stepped away, lifting his head, surveying the room full of Angels half out of their armor or still in it, buzzing with post-mission energy. “The LT says we got shore leave, soon’s we’re done here. Let’s get squared away, _Nephilim_ , I’m ready to fucking celebrate.”

They roared back an affirmation, one voice, one surge of overwhelming emotion, and Jensen never wanted to be anywhere else. Ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2254 – the year Jensen becomes an ArchANGEL
> 
> Platoon _Nephilim_ : 36 soldiers + LT (Lieutenant Robert Wisdom) plus Platoon Gunnery Sergeant (Jeff Morgan).  
> Four squads of nine (complete) ArchANGELs. Squad leaders Jensen, Five, Jinx and Kee.  
> Other platoons are _Dominions_ , _Demons_ , _Seraphim_ , _Ophanim_ , etc..
> 
> Dropship _Helel_ with assigned pilot, navigator, armscomp and 2nd+mechanic. Dropship crew are regular AFSPC (AirForceSpaceCommand), and modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS . Six dropships per carrier.
> 
> LTs and platoon Gunnery Sergeants are modified (incomplete) ArchANGELS, mustered out Marines with either honorable or dishonorable discharges. 
> 
> Troopship _Tiamat_ , with a compliment of 500: 12 platoons c/LT/Gunnery Sgt/Squad leaders (456), plus six dropships (26) one medevac (12) and ship’s actual crew (8). Medevac and Crew are not ArchANGELs. 
> 
> APDS rounds - Armour-piercing discarding sabot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little short, but at least I got that pesky note thing figured out. TRIGGER WARNING, for euthanasia and suicide.

_2155 - KOI-1686.01 (Kepler Object of Interest). Terraforming begins. Completed by 2233, the planet is surveyed and marked for colonization by 2247. In 2257, the first colonists arrive on the planet, now called Kin-Gin. Earmarked for gold and silver mining, as well as other, more rare (and less plentiful) metals, Kin-Gin’s star is cooler and dimmer than Earth’s, and has little indigenous plant or animal life. Kin-Gin’s calendar year is approximately 17 standard Earth months, and the Kin-Gin day is approximately 29 standard Earth hours._

_The planet itself is mountainous and rocky, with liquid water on the surface and below. Farming is restricted to greenhouses, aquaponics and intensely enriched terraces along the many rivers. It has a short growing season. Terran fowl (chicken hybrids) were introduced for eggs and meat, as well as heavily modified Terran goats for milk._

_Early, faulty terraforming embedded toxins in the strata of the planet, as well as into the microbial life. This would not become **public** knowledge for over 15 years._

 

 _The angel raised his hand and looked and said,_  
 _“Which world, of all yon starry myriad,_  
 _Shall we make wing to?”_ \- ‘The Flight’, by Lloyd Mifflin. (Jared's Story)

 

 

Kin-Gin was a cold world, cobalt-silver sky streaked with white, a sun like a smear of lusterless silver behind the ever-racing clouds. Canyons and arroyos had been dug out of the slaty tableland, showing the variegated layers that made up the semi-arid steppes. What limited plant life had taken hold clung to the low spots, roots going wide and deep for moisture, stems and branches bent low under the endless, sighing wind.

They came there to live - to dig in, and mine, and farm. 20,000 colonists, places won by lottery, straggling out of the landing pods and getting their first look at home. The earth-movers were already churning up the ground a kilometer or so distant, extruders ready to pour the molds that would shape the cretefoam homes. 

Jaasau Sill shouldered her duffle and put her booted foot squarely onto the blue-grey dust of the landing zone. She half-turned, holding out her gloved hand, and Signey Padalecki took it, green knit fingers curling around brown. Signey’s eyes smiled over the flap of flowered headscarf she’d wrapped across her mouth and nose, and Jaasau grinned back, crooked white teeth in a dark face.

“Looks like this is it.”

“Looks like,” Signey said. She stepped down, as well, and they both stood there for a moment, fingers clutching tight and the wind buffeting them, making Signey laugh, pushed into Jaasau’s side. Then they moved, going with the flow of bundled up, gloved and muffled figures who were trailing down the ramp, across the landing zone, to the row of portable terminals set up under a long, rustling tent of dull-white micropore.

Thumb print, retina scan, a scribble of names across scratched data-pads and it was done. They were registered as citizens of Kin-Gin, numbers 842 and 843, and they were entitled to a three-room house with a five meter diameter geodesic greenhouse attached, and a share in the fields of grain that would be planted along the river. They also had a chit each for a child, and that night, in the temporary barracks of tents, Signey curled close to Jaasau under the blankets, whispering her plans for their family, their lives.

Jared wasn’t born for five long, hard years.

Jaasau noticed it first. Jared at four years old - almost six, by Earth standards, Kin-Gin’s years being longer - stumbling when he came into the greenhouse. There was almost no sill, and the cretefoam was worn smooth by years of heavy boots, but he stumbled, every time. She watched him lean over the edge of the fish tank, nose wrinkling at the heavy, wet scent, left leg crooked, his foot awkwardly angled. His grab for the fish-net missed.

He had a fever that night - mild, nothing much - and then he seemed...fine. Just fine. 

A week later, she watched him eating, his fingers chattering the fork across the plate, and she felt cold. She rested her hand on her belly, on the small, growing bump there, and felt an icy twist of fear go through her. In bed that night, she stared across at the curtained access that marked the doorway to Jared’s built-on room. Little blurs of amber light - fish shapes from his home made night light - drifted slowly across the curtain, revolving around his room. Signey burrowed closer, her callused hand on Jaasau’s belly, but when she kissed up Jaasau’s neck to nibble on her earlobe, Jaasau moved away, just a little. 

“What’s the matter, love?”

“Nothing. Just...have you noticed...sometimes, Jared….”

Signey went up on one elbow, letting in a curl of cold air, and Jaasau made a little hiss of discomfort, tucking the blanket down. “Sometimes Jared, what?”

“He stumbles. He...he couldn’t get his food on his fork, tonight, he kept chasing it around his plate, he….”

“He’s just a kid, Jaasau. Kids are clumsy.”

Jaasau sighed, reaching up to smooth the chin-length, dark-brown hair that fell around Signey’s face like a cowl. “I know. I just...I dunno. Nerves, I guess,” she said. Signey lay down again, tugging Jaasau close until they slotted together, back to chest and hips to hips, Signey’s mouth pressing softly against the finger-length twists of Jaasau’s hair.

“Yeah. I remember that feeling. Like everything was a threat. It’ll be okay, love. We’ll all be okay.”

“I know. I know we will. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Signey said, and after a few minutes, Signey’s fingers rubbing an idle pattern over the back of Jaasau’s hand, Jaasau was asleep. Signey stayed awake longer, staring into the dark and listening to the endless, dry rush of the wind that blew over and around and sometimes through. Tonight it was full of little flakes of ice, first dry snow of a dry winter, and Signey’s hip ached where she’d stumbled over nothing at all, falling against the wheel-well of the crawler they used to get to the fields. It was nothing. Had to be...nothing.

 

Jared’s sister didn’t live three months, and Jaasau too often found herself standing over the little cup of rock and lichen that was the grave of her ashes, just staring. Six years gone, and Jaasau just could not let go. She couldn’t seem to move forward, a groove worn in her mind from circling around and around, _what if_ , and _could I have_ and _why, why, why_ , neverending. She would get so cold she would limp back home, her feet clumsy and her legs weak. She was so _tired_ , always so tired, now, aching in all her bones, unsteady on legs that felt like wood, with fingers that refused to bend or hold.

Signey had been laid up at home for the past three weeks from a broken foot from falling out of the crawler, and the greenhouse was suffering. The pump’s filters were clogged and the pump itself chugged asthmatically. A pinkish-yellow slime was building along the edges of the tank, and the fish inside looked scabby, swimming sideways, white film trailing behind them. Jaasau almost didn’t care.

Jared...Jared tried. Ten years old, now, sitting on a hunk of insulation foam, bulky in his winter coat. Thin legs sprawled out crookedly, thin fingers working slow, so slow, to unscrew the pump housing, to fish out the filters. His hair hung down over his forehead, trembling like weeds as his head moved spastically - rhythmically - left and then back to center. Over and over and over. 

He looked up as Jaasau came inside, leaning tiredly on the door and fumbling with the latch. “Mama,” he said. “You loo..ook col’.” His voice was a little nasal, a little choppy, and his words were slurred. More and more, every month, every week. Every day, she swore. 

“That wind cuts right through you,” Jaasau said. She sighed and pushed off from the door, walked over to Jared and sat down on the listing stack of fish food bags against the house-wall of the greenhouse. They crunched faintly under her weight. “How’s the filter coming?”

“Get...t..ting the..eh,” he said. He plucked at the edge of the filter frame, his fingers missing the mark, bouncing off and hitting the housing, groping at nothing. They shook, curled a little, and Jaasau felt a fierce, hot stab of fury and terror. Her boy - her _boy_! What was happening to him? To all of them? Three other babies had died just that year and more of them were growing up like Jared, with clubbed feet and twisted legs and nervous systems that sent useless, spastic messages out to limbs that were too thin, too weak, too small.

Jaasau reached out and smoothed Jared’s hair back from his forehead, and he grinned up at her, one eye tending a little too far outward, lips crooked, oh, _God_ , everything about her beautiful, funny boy was crooked, growing as wrong as the tankful of fish that she didn’t want to eat anymore. “You’re a good boy, Jared. You’re a big help to me and Mommy. She awake?”

Jared nodded, up and down that fought with the constant leftward jerk. “She maaade soh...me sss...ooo...ooopah.”

“Some hot soup sounds pretty good right now; help to warm me up. Why don’t you leave that for now and come eat, we’ll fix it later. You hungry?”

“Aaw...wayss hun..ree,” Jared said, grinning harder - their little joke - the dimples in his cheeks and the sparkle in his eyes making Jaasau grin back through gritted teeth, because she was going to cry in a minute if she didn’t get up and get moving _right now_.

“Well come on then, bottomless pit. Give your mama a hand getting up, I’m wore out.”

Jared tried twice, three times, before he finally slotted the screwdriver back into its loop in the toolbox, and then he levered himself clumsily to his feet. His left shoulder was a little higher - his spine twisting out of true - and there wasn’t much strength in the thin hands that curled around Jaasau’s and made a show of pulling her up. She huffed out air and leaned against the wall and _pushed_ , her back complaining and her legs trembling. Tomorrow she was going to be down in the cut, working to help dig out the sub-basement of a long-planned community center, and she wasn’t looking forward to it at all. She and Jared both stumbled over the door sill, and laughed at themselves, stripping off layers of coats and scarves to hang on their hooks. The kitchen was warm and humid, cozy with the overhead light in its amber shade and the patchy cream of the walls. The good smell of savory soup and fresh bread made Jaasau’s stomach growl, and Signey looked up at them with a grin and a little wave from her chair by the stove, knitting in her lap like a broken spider’s web. Grey stood out from the dark cowl of her hair, rougher than it had been, the ends dry and fraying.

Jaasau got the bowls down from the cabinet and ladled out soup while Jared stumbled around the table with napkins and spoons and then - tip of his tongue poking out in concentration, hands shaking - the board with the new loaf of bread. He chattered in his slow, arrhythmic way to Signey as he helped her stow the knitting in its bag and held her crutches while she stood up.

Jaasau got the soup to the table, the glasses and the pitcher of water from the ‘fridge, the milk for Jared. The weight and chill of them made her hands ache. She sank down with a little groan, rubbing at her trembling thighs under the edge of the table. Signey maneuvered herself around the table and into her own chair, while Jared did the same, half-falling into the seat and rattling the silverware as he knocked into the table edge.

Signey cut slices of bread and smeared the sharp, soft goat cheese on them before handing them around while Jaasau poured the drinks. They ate slowly, mostly silent, Jaasau too tired - and Signey too, probably - and Jared concentrating too hard on not spilling to say much.

Afterward, Jaasau washed up, and Signey and Jared hunched over his dataspot, struggling through the few pages of homework he had for school. Jared could read - he loved to read, in fact, and was so damn smart, so _quick_ to understand new things, _complicated_ things - but it was getting harder for him to manipulate the cursor and stylus on the ‘spot. Harder for the speech-to-text function to understand him, too. 

They all went to bed early, exhausted by a day of routine and rote, worn down by the constant, hoarse shush of the wind. Jaasau spiked a fever in the night, and got up once, bent double with stiffness, legs like lead, to use the toilet. That was the last time she ever walked unaided again.

 

What Jaasau had - what they all had - was discovered by a woman named Meta Grimes, and the collection of neurological defects and chromosomal mutations that affected, and sometimes ended, over eight thousand lives on Kin-Gin, was christened Grimes’ Palsy. When Jared was twelve, the first of the lawsuits were filed against the terraforming company that had falsified records and destroyed reports, obliterating much of a record of spotty inspections, illegal catalyst chemicals, and ‘forming operations that were so rife with bribery and kickbacks it was a wonder they’d gone on so long undetected. They had shortcut their way to colonization by burying the truth of just what their machines and compounds and chemicals had set in motion, ignoring the fact that they were sending colonists to their deaths on a planet saturated in toxins. 

When Jared turned sixteen, the lottery was announced. It was for the children of Kin-Gin, for all the bright, quick souls that struggled, trapped in poisoned flesh. Jared had by then been a year in the glassine exoskeleton that allowed him to move, stalking over their farm and around the greenhouse with a weird, stilt-limbed grace, the halo holding his head steady on his too-weak neck, the chip embedded in the frame doing most of his talking for him, and the tube in his gut taking in his food, ever since he’d choked and nearly died on a mouthful of eggs. He was still dimpled, still smiling, but hectic - jittery - forcing his mother to eat, to work, to _live_ with a grim determination, because he knew that otherwise, Signey would have just laid down and died.

She wasn’t fitted for a ‘skele - her arms still worked, and her hands, and she made do with a power chair and the little crawler, trundling slowly to and from her job at the recycling plant, sorting the good from the bad, the useful from the useless. _She_ was useless, trapped in a body that refused to cooperate, locked into a grief that wouldn’t end.

Jaasau wasn’t at home, anymore - she lived with a couple hundred others at the hospice, turned and fed and tended, too far gone for anything, now, but waiting. Her brain and nervous system had been steadily eroded by the toxins they took in with every breath, every drink, every meal. 

It was everywhere, leaching out of the ground and the plants, in the air, in their _bones_. It killed within the womb or it killed inch by slow and torturous inch without, and Jared wasn’t the only child propped up by servos and hydraulics, propelled by glassine bones. The constant rasp of the wind over the joints of the ‘skele made it hitch, sometimes - stutter and stall - and Signey had rescued Jared a time or two, stranded out in the fields, limb-locked and shivering, locator beeping steadily.

Everywhere she turned, she saw them, the blighted children of a dream that had long since withered, just as she withered, day by day and year by year. They sat at home in the dim amber light of the kitchen lamp and watched the lottery winners flash up on the datapoint. Five hundred, a thousand - more. Until finally three thousand numbers had scrolled by, and Jared was sitting frozen, staring at _his_ number, flashing in the corner of the screen. Winner two-thousand and sixty-seven. Chosen to be medevaced off Kin-Gin, across the system and out, to distant Salome. The ANGEL system would heal him, would heal them all. 

And it would only cost him years, in physical therapy, in sweat and pain and effort, and years more in indentured servitude to the Company. Signey didn’t care. It would get him gone, out of this pit. He could _live_ , and that was all that mattered. Her beautiful boy, her sweetheart. They cried together, that night; went and told Jaasau in the morning, though she only looked past them, her mouth crooked and her eyes glazed, lips moving around mumbled fragments of sounds, wasted limbs twitching under the sheets. Ashen and gaunt, she was long gone. 

It took nearly a year, after that, for the Company and the law to hash it all out, to dicker the fine points down to nothing and explore every option and contingency. And then Jared was gone, jolting away on the back of a transport to the dock, his thin hand lifted, glassine sheath glinting in the silvery light, his hair blowing around his eyes. They’d said their goodbyes behind closed doors, and Signey watched, dry-eyed, as he drove away with the others, smiling for him, because that’s what mothers did.

The spot on the dresser inside that had held their wedding picture was empty now, but Signey didn’t mind. She went back inside and looked into Jared’s tidy, empty room and then into her own, where most of Jaasau was wiped away, now - her scent gone, her voice faded, nothing of her spirit or her soul left in the scatter of books, the unraveling sweaters.

Signey fed the chickens, turned off the heater and put the key on the hook by the door. She trundled over in the crawler to the hospice, to tell Jaasau that Jared was gone. She held Jaasau’s wasted hand, kissed the spastic fingers, and pressed the little ampoule to her arm, pushing in a dose of Sand that would send her to sleep forever. Then she drove the crawler out along the high road and into the hills, up onto the modest cliff they called the Misty Mountain, that overlooked a mercury-grey sea. The grey-green grass threshed in the endless wind, rasping against the crawler’s sides. Signey dragged herself free of the crawler’s seat and collapsed down into the coarse, damp stems. She fumbled in a pocket for a moment and brought out the little single-shot that she’d carried for years, the product of a treacherous childhood, to never be unprepared. It only took a moment to prime it, and then Signey lifted it to her mouth, tasting iron and salt.

She watched the actinic glow of the shuttle’s lifters shatter into prisms of light, blinking away tears as Jared was carried up, up, and out of sight, the faint roar coming to her a moment later, blotted by the cough of the single-shot. Jared wouldn’t know for almost a year that his mothers were dead. It wouldn’t matter, anymore, by then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2266 - year Jared is born. 
> 
> Grimes’ Palsy is characterized by a loss of fine motor skills, skeletal deformities, dysarthria, tardive dyskinesia, and cognitive and learning disabilities.
> 
> Kin-Gin was re-classified as a class 4, non-habitable planet soon after, with colonists being refugeed elsewhere and the mining operations taken over by highly automated ‘bots and strictly monitored miners who worked on a two-month-on, four-month-off rotation schedule, exchanging places with personnel in the orbiting refinery station. 
> 
> Of the 9,000+ afflicted, over 5000 died within ten years of diagnosis. 3000 were ‘cured’ via the lottery, and the rest were left with less severe, but still debilitating, issues.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING for attempted suicide.
> 
> PELE round: [Penetrator with Enhanced Lateral Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour-piercing_discarding_sabot#FAPDS).

_By 2247, the ArchANGEL system was virtually banned from use in all volunteer military forces, although a modified ANGEL system was in place to enhance pilot skills and to rebuild and rehabilitate gravely wounded soldiers. The ArchANGEL system’s usefulness and versatility, however, was too much of a temptation, and the threats facing a human population that was pushing further and further into the universe were too overpowering. By special order of the United Solar Federation, the ArchANGEL system was green-lit for a single purpose: the building and maintaining of an elite fighting force, drawn solely from the population of incarcerated citizens._

_Those imprisoned for rape, murder, desertion, treason and acts of terror were offered the option of becoming ArchANGELs. If they survived their service, they were free to live as citizens and civilians once again._

_Approximately one in 500 make it to retirement. Of those, to date, zero have lived longer than two months past their mustering out. There's no such thing as an ex-ArchANGEL._

 

 _When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes_  
_I all alone beweep my outcast state,_  
_And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,_  
_And look upon myself, and curse my fate…._ \- ‘A Consolation’, by William Shakespeare. 

 

 

It all ended for Jensen in orbit around 16 Cygni, aboard the _Galbraith_ , a massive warship of sketchy origins, converted over the years into a roving arms and drugs manufacturing platform, the nucleus of a web of pirates and privateers, smugglers and dealers. They cooked up black-market drugs, traded arms and armor and ammo banned by the Federals, passed along bodies and body parts and were the middle-man for every trade, deal or sale for hundreds of thousands of light-years around. 

The Federals wanted it gone and the _Tiamat_ was tapped for the job. They went in hard and fast, every Angel on board either free-falling from the _Tiamat_ or on board the three-person Shrikes, the compact strafe-and-drop ships the Angels only used in zero-gravity. From a distance, it seemed the _Galbraith_ was suddenly attacked by a swarm of bees, Angels and Shrikes arrowing in from all directions, riding lances of plasma and fire. There was no after here, no salvage and no mercy. It was what the Angels called a One and Done - only smoking wreckage left behind. Angels take no prisoners. Jensen was with Sinna and Mal in a Shrike, remote-piloted off the big board back on the _Tiamat_. They buzzed in low and dropped their load, leaving a cross-stitch of destruction in their wake, blooming one-minute fires of red and orange quickly snuffed by airless space. They really only needed the holes. 

The next pass was for the Angels to leap free, metallic darts slicing through wreckage and defenders alike to fetch up against a metaglass heat sink, their suits leaving no marks in the near-unbreakable metallic-glass alloy, mag-locks on their armored feet latching solid to the hull. The _Galbraith’s_ gravity was less than certain now, and getting more unstable by the moment. Jensen could see his _Nephilim_ strung out on the bomb-pocked hull like a chain around him, squad leaders flashing blue in the HUD, the rest in white, close enough to form up. So he sent the impulse out into the ‘net, arming his rifle and heading inside, heading for an intact string of labs where particularly toxic biologicals and organics were born. The Federals wanted that gone with, as Morgan said, ‘extreme prejudice’ - leave nothing but a crater, sear it back to base metal. Jensen was more than happy to oblige.

The _Galbraith_ crew was as haphazard as she was, but that wasn’t to say they were cowards. Their activities had at least left them well-armed and used to conflict, and the lab Jensen and his _Nephilim_ were targeting was worth a few dozen lives. Billions in profit were represented in a little under sixteen hundred square meters of glassine lab modules and walk-in, stainless grow units. They weren’t going to let it go without a fight.

The _Nephilim_ were met with concentrated fire: pulse-plasma rifles and scatter grenades. It was nothing to their suits, to the barrier-shock shields they could deploy at will. They returned fire not with the standard APDS rounds, but with something far more deadly - PELE rounds, that punched their way through glassine and armor alike, and shattered into hundreds of lethally sharp fragments. Every other round was packed with a sticky fire incendiary, and within seconds, half the surfaces were on fire, including the _Galbraith_ defenders. 

A man was on the floor in front of Jensen, burning, his blackening limbs twitching and curling like charred paper, and Jensen rocked to a standstill, staring - _seeing_ , without really seeing, everything going to a blue-grey haze, flicker-flash of some other where, some other when. Images overlapped each other with a staticky hiss and Jensen shook his head, his lungs hitching, his breath coming in short, sharp pants, not enough oxygen, not enough…. He lifted a hand - shaking, his hand was shaking - and fumbled at the latch on his faceplate. Fuck, he couldn’t _breathe_ , he needed air. A shrill warning beep made him jerk, startled, as he clicked the latch open. 

_”Warning. Contaminants present. Do not breach suit seal, do not breach suit seal. Warning. Contaminants present….”_

“ _Jensen, **cut it** , what the fuck are you doing?_” from Morgan, far off and tinny. Unimportant. The bolo of scatter grenades draped over the corpse’s shoulder finally ignited, and the concussive _boom_ of a half-dozen powerful explosives sent Jensen and five other _Nephilim_ flying backwards. Jensen’s faceplate bounced _up_ , coming open an inch - half an inch - and Jensen took in a ragged, stuttering breath of air that was seared with heat, thick with smoke, flavored with the rank, sickly reek of charring flesh. He went into darkness with that smell in his nostrils.

 

When Jensen woke, it was all at once, an uprush of noise and sensation that flared and faded in an eyeblink. He was left lying staring upward, blinking slowly, numb from the neck down. Somewhere a shrill alarm was blaring. Jensen winced and gasped in air and then tried to move, but nothing happened, his body inert and far away. He could feel panic welling up, his brain running in frantic, frenzied circles and then it all…washed away. 

_Drugs_ , he thought, sighing, grateful. _They got me, I’m okay…._ He sank down and was gone again, into a warm, blank nothing.

It was like that for a while - hours or days, Jensen couldn’t tell. Then he woke up again, only this time he wasn’t numb, and this time he didn’t panic. He was propped in a suspension bed, held an inch or so above the surface on warm air, something they did for long-term patients, to keep them from getting sores. Jensen was _awake_ , but still not quite all there, and he looked down at the length of his body, cocooned in a web of IV lines and biomonitors, generation wrap and far too many polyflex casts. He could feel the whisper of ultrasound, embedded in the casts, used to stimulate bone growth. It didn’t give him the rush he was used to, and that troubled him, in a far-off kind of way. 

He lifted a finger - a hand - reaching weakly for...something. A drink. His mouth was dry as dust, his throat rough, and he knew that without whatever drugs they had pumping in, it would be ten times worse. As he twitched weakly, looking around the bare, sterile room, a low chime sounded and then a holoscreen opened above him, a crisp-edged square of blue-white light that made Jensen squint, his eyes tearing. A face stared down at him, older and a little heavy, with tilted eyes and dark hair twisted neatly into some kind of plait.

“Jensen, are you awake?”

Jensen stared, stalled momentarily on the stupidity of the question. Of course he was awake! He opened his mouth to say something sarcastic and his throat seemed to seize, so dry and sore he could only make a rough kind of noise, breathy and wrong. He jerked his chin up, coughing, and the man reached off-screen, touching something.

 

“Okay, I’ll be right there. Let the arm give you a drink, okay?” The lozenge winked out and Jensen blinked at the empty air, glad that the room lights were dimmed down to almost nothing. He flinched ever so slightly as a robot arm unfolded from the wall, extending a plastic-tipped, stainless tube toward him. It slipped neatly between his lips, like a straw, and Jensen sucked carefully.

It was only water, not too cold, mineral-flat, but glorious all the same. He sucked hard, but the thing had a limit, and he only got little sips. After seven or eight, though, he was grateful for that, because the water, as bland as it was, didn’t sit quite right, and finally he turned his head away. The arm withdrew, and then another reached out, a puff of some fibrous stuff on the tip of it. It was wet, slightly slick, and it wiped over his cracked lips and then over his sticky eyes, over cheeks and chin and even his throat, dipping back into a reservoir in the wall for a new puff two or three times. It wiped carefully and meticulously, cleaning and leaving behind a moist film. It felt - good. Better.

Jensen sighed a little, looking around. He was in a standard med bay, all bioplastic walls and anodized-metal corners, something you could snap together in an hour. This one was mostly a kind of white, with all the the metal, including his bed frame, colored a very pale blue. It was a chilly room, but Jensen was warm in his air-bed, and besides, it was restful. The holo had been...really bright.

A few moments later, the man from the holo came into view, stepping around a dividing wall. He was tall and, like Jensen had thought, older, with dark skin and big hands, a bit of a belly comfortably cocooned in pale-blue scrubs with the Navy medic insignia woven into the breast pocket and shoulder. Jensen felt his heart skip up a little faster, at that.

“Hey, Jensen, I’m Tama. How are you feeling? Anything hurt?”

Jensen tried to tell him. Opened his mouth and moved his lips and tongue, but the only thing that came out was a useless noise like grinding gears, harsh and ragged and unintelligible. And it _hurt_ , so he stopped, panting a little. His eyes teared up, reflex, and the robot arm darted out again to wick them away.

“Yeah, okay. We figured you might not be able to talk yet. Hang on.” Tama touched the wall beside him and a shallow drawer slid out, showing bits of medic-stuff, a jumble to Jensen’s eyes. Tama picked something out and a moment later was smoothing it onto Jensen’s throat and under his chin, three little points of coolness that faded almost immediately, so Jensen was barely aware of them - a throat mic, for subvocal speech, just like in the suits. The familiarity of it calmed Jensen down just a little. Tama clipped a little speaker to the rail of the bed and tapped it on. “Try that.”

Jensen clenched his teeth and swallowed - tried again, only thinking the words this time. “This isn’t the _Tiamat_.” It was his voice, mostly, coming from the speaker. His voice, with a subtle little mechanical lilt to it, the merest back-echo of a harmonic that made it not - quite - human.

Tama looked at him with a little smile. “Great, that’s great. No, you’re not on the _Tiamat_. You’re on board the _Nightingale Six_. We’re a medevac ship.”

Jensen stared at Tama, at the dark eyes and faintly-smiling mouth, and the little tick of pulse in the skin of the man’s thick throat. He was...nervous, and it was starting to freak Jensen out. “Why not? What the fuck, I should be on the _Tiamat_ , we’ve got medical there. Why-? Where’s my unit? Where’s Jinx and…? Where’s Morgan?”

“Jensen, I-”

“I’ll take over from here, corpsman,” a woman interrupted, and Tama straightened briefly to something like attention and nodded, then silently slipped away. The woman who replaced him was a type Jensen was used to: older, stern, unbending; a military lifer, who took no shit. By the seams of dark scars Jensen could see at the collar of her shirt, though, it was obvious she was the real deal, not just some desk jockey. She stood for a moment, looking down at him, dark eyes in a dark face, her scrubs a navy blue and her white coat machine-stitched with name and rank. 

“I’m Captain Oke. As corpsman Kaihau told you, you’re aboard the medevac _Nightingale Six_ , headed for Reveille.”

“ _Reveille_. Wha- Why? Why’m I- Tell me what the _fuck_ is going on-”

“ _Corporal_ Jensen.” Oke’s voice cracked like a whip, and Jensen took a hard, shaky breath in, lifted one hand, fingers curling, and Oke sighed. “You were injured taking the _Galbraith_. There were organic contaminants in the labs there that you were sterilizing. Your suit was breached, and you were infected.”

“Infected with _what_?” Couldn’t be serious - _couldn’t_ \- or he’d be in quarantine, he’d be behind plex walls and the Captain would be in a sealed suit.

“We don’t _know_. Some kind of...bacteria. They were doing a lot of illegal stuff out there, and your...Angels...wiped out most of the records. All I can tell you is - whatever it was, it reacted badly with the ANGEL system.” The Captain reached out and tapped a command into the wall unit Jensen could just see to his left, and the holo screen opened again, scrolling rapid lines of text. “You went into septic shock, there were convulsions from fever, your heart stopped, twice-”

“Fuck- Captain. I don’t care about that- that stuff. Just, tell me, why- why am I-?” Jensen was panting, his heart pounding, pushing through whatever drug they had dripping into him, and the Captain looked up at him, tapped the holo off and frowned. A little chime was sounding, somewhere. 

“You need to calm down, Corporal. Calm down or I’ll put you out.”

Jensen gulped air, nodding, forced himself to breath slowly, forced his body to relax. His legs ached, his back too, and his gut was twisting, making him swallow twice, three times. “Yessir, just...tell me.”

“Your ‘net is gone, for all practical purposes. That’s why all this-” She swept her hand over him, the generation wrap and the casts, and Jensen shuddered, his body jerking spasmodically. “You’re not healing on your own. It looks like you’re rejecting the extra muscle and bone mass you needed for combat, and your vocal cords are...well, you know that already. There’s some nerve damage; your motor control isn’t going to ever be what it was.” Oke stopped, and the look she gave Jensen was one of professional pity and understanding. It made Jensen want to scream. He could feel tears running down the sides of his face, hot and humiliating, and Oke tapped in some other command and immediately, Jensen felt himself getting heavy, sleepy. The numbing wash of some drug rolled through him, and he sighed in relief, happy to be put out, to hide in an opium daze from what the Captain was saying. 

“We’re going to reach Reveille in about two days; you’ve been unconscious for almost seventeen. The bacteria’s gone, we’ve got the infection under control. Now all you have to do is...get better, Corporal.” Jensen didn’t react to that, and after a moment Captain Oke left, a tiny swish and squeak of her shoes as she retreated. Jensen lay there and let the arm wipe at the tears until he drifted into sleep. Reflexively - desperately - he reached for his Angels through the ‘net, over and over, only to be met with silence. For the first time in forty years, he was completely alone and he was...terrified. He hoped, dimly, that he’d never wake up again.

He was pretty pissed when he did. And when he kept doing it, despite his best efforts not to. After five weeks of recuperation and spotty physical therapy, he was moved to a lock-down ward at Reveille. The place was for head-cases, the ones who tried to tear your throat out with their teeth, the ones who tried to set the nursing station on fire. But it was also for the ones like him, who had tried to open as many veins as possible and let his life slip right out; through his wrists, the first time, and his thigh, the second. Both times, the medbots scooped him up and shoved him into cold storage, into a tube of generation gel that sopped up his blood and fed it back to him, while his heart was shocked back into life and his brain was kept oxygenated.

When he wasn’t plotting his death - and the deaths of the PT nurses - Jensen plotted how to sabotage the medbots and the gel tubes; to that end, he spent a lot of time drugged out of the here-and-now, and a lot of time just too damn exhausted to do much more than sit. They tried to teach him how to read and write, but it wasn’t a skill he’d ever had and he didn’t care about it, anyway. He learned his name, and numbers up to one hundred, but you could do voice on any computer or put in an ear-bead, and his thumbprint made any bank terminal work, so what was the point? He did like writing his name, though, and he carefully drew it on every piece of clothing he owned, over and over, forcing his cramping, shaking hand to work, to do it _right_. He drew on the inside of his clothes only, in indelible ink. It reminded him of the designs Sinna had etched into his suit, and it made him feel better, to have that hidden armor, even if it was worthless.

When they were done with him, he was almost a hundred pounds lighter, shrunk down from the bulk of his Angel days, gone to whipcord and bone and muscle that shook if he worked too hard, or did too much. He’d let his hair grow - on his head, at least - something he’d forgotten about altogether, the feel of it as it brushed his neck and shoulders and fell forward around his face, a convenient curtain to hide behind. The rest he kept clean, irritated by the itch and rub of it, and how it made his tattoos look dim and old. 

He could walk - something that had surprised the doctors - and he could talk, though his voice would never be the same. But he wasn’t an Angel anymore, and he’d never felt quite so trapped, so fucking _wrong_. The ward, like any other in the ‘verse, had a brisk trade going in stolen and concocted chemicals, and getting high was about the only thing that kept Jensen remotely sane.

With the loss of the ‘net, and drugs that had come with it, sleeping was...problematical. Jensen really preferred _not_ to, on the whole, even if sleep deprivation made him hallucinate. At least then they’d knock him back with a huge hit of the good stuff, putting him down like a mad dog. It made Jensen laugh, when he thought of it. He tried not to do that, too often. They looked at him like they were sorry for him, if he did, and he hated that, above all else. 

They told him they’d got him a job, something to ‘reintegrate him into civilian life’. Jensen didn’t have the slightest fucking clue what they even meant by that, and didn’t spend much time thinking about it. Fuck, these people thought he was safe to _let go_ \- what the hell did they know? 

They dumped him on Axis, one of the biggest stations in the galaxy, queen bee in a hive of smaller stations, planetoids, and dry docks. He had a chip with forty-one years of back pay (minus his room, board, rehab, and the ANGEL system itself) and a half-empty duffle with a few pieces of clothes, his sweater, a toothbrush. He was a citizen again instead of a convict, instead of a soldier, and he was desperately, achingly, unutterably lost.


	5. Chapter 5

_2296 - The Wolf 424 system_

_...Instruments of deadliest servitude._ \- William Wordsworth, ‘Temptations from Roman Refinements'

 

Jared only hit Axis once every eight-week, when he went on mandatory down-time from the mine. He worked the Alvarez, an iridium-heavy planetoid that had been one of the founding mines to make Axis - and the surrounding hive stations, research facilities, and dry docks - a successful commercial venture. At nearly two hundred kilometers, it was a warren of tunnels and pits surrounded by a scaffold of habitats, linked via magnetic elevators to the processing and refining stations. All zero-g, for the most part, so the Company had them on rotation to keep bone and muscle loss to a minimum. And Jared always did what the Company expected, because, after all, they owned him.

Though maybe not as much as they thought.

He’d been years at Salome, first dealing with and recovering from Grimes, and then training to work in the field. He mined, at Alvarez, but he could turn his hand to refining, too, and he’d worked a while at cold-welding before Alvarez, laying down layers of circuitry on the skins of deep-space explorers. He’d done a half-dozen different jobs, adding as many skills - as much knowledge - as he could; learning, day in, and day out, because the Company would let you take any schooling you wanted, learn any trade you could. 

Mining - with the looming threats of suffocation, radiation, zero-g wasting and heavy metal poisoning - paid the most. Jared was in debt up to his eyeballs, what with the ANGEL system, the PT, all his schooling…. If he didn’t take the high-risk jobs, he’d be paying it off until he died, and he really didn’t like the thought of that. At Kin-Gin, they’d never owed anybody anything - not until Grimes, not until the end. 

Jared shook off the thought of Kin-Gin, and his past, and settled his duffle a little more firmly between his feet. The shuttle to Axis was crowded, as always, and he didn’t fancy it being kicked away from him - lost in the crowd to some light fingers. He had three weeks at Axis, a bunk in the Company barracks and a physio session with a Company doctor. He’d get that out of the way on day one, if he could.

The other thing he had was about six thousand on an anonymous debit card, got in highly illegal ways. The Company banked most of his pay, leaving him a stipend for any extras he might want. A measly one or two hundred a month, scratch barely worth considering. But Jared had skills over and above the ones he’d learned in Company schools.

He could clone almost any card, program readers and reminders to do so much more; could build stills and mini-refineries for a range of illegal and highly dangerous drugs. The Company on the surface was shiny-clean and white, but underneath it were several million indentured ‘employees’ who were all madly doing everything and anything to earn money in the blackest of black markets, in the hopes of winning their freedom sometime _before_ they were too old and used up to enjoy it.

They reached Axis and docked with a minimum of fuss, the pilot at the helm a pretty good one, or at least a sober one. Jared shuffled off with the rest of the crowd, miners in their distinct gear, all of them smudged and smirched with the filth of their trade, too tired or too eager to clean up before departure. ‘Sides, it’d all just get dirty again on the filthy shuttles.

Execs and tourists and the rest of them had nicer shuttles - clean and modern and above all _exclusive_ \- so they didn’t have to dirty their fingers or their tailored suits, or their starched-white, Company souls. Miners disembarked at level ten, sliding IDs along the slot, having fingerprints and retinas scanned, collecting mail and Company news bulletins and the latest glossy adverts from all over Axis. Jared sorted through it on his dataspot while he walked, discarding most of it. There were a couple of letters from old, old friends at Salome, hopelessly time-lagged in their long journey, sent over a year ago, though to the spacers on the jump ships, it had only been a month or two. He’d read those later, maybe save them for back on Alvarez, when he was deep in the dark of the mines and desperate for some distraction.

The other thing he kept was an ad. On the face of it, it was for some skin club on Carousel, fast-cut scenes of writhing bodies and sparkling lights, drink prices and services offered scrolling across the bottom in five different languages plus ship-speak and pictographs for the illiterate. The pictographs made Jared grin, until the last one. Two humanoid bodies, one with wings and one with a pointy tail, simulating sex. Devil in the Angel. Jared shut the dataspot down and shoved it into an inner pocket. Things to do, places to be. Get the physio over with, get his weekly drug-dump, get going.

After his physio - fuck, how he hated those - he cleaned up in the barracks’ long rows of showers, sluicing off days of grime and standing for long, long minutes under the hot spray, wallowing. Clean and wrapped up in a couple of towels, he shaved and brushed and got his hair into some kind of order - it was long enough to tie back, now, but he didn’t feel like messing with it.

He dressed in snug, quasi-military trousers with a dull-black stripe down the outside of the black legs, a thin, v-necked navy sweater and his boots. They guy who’d sold ‘em to him called them ‘tanker’ boots, but the only tankers Jared knew about were ice-haulers out in the Belt, and nobody needed boots like these out there. He just liked the look of them - the straps that looped around his ankles and shins, and the steel guards that were sewn into the shanks and lined the soles; they made effective weapons and kept his feet protected.

Dataspot in one of the pockets on his thigh, debit card and ID in an inner one at his waist, impossible to pick, highly illegal Cobra at his ankle, he was ready to go. He rode the mag-lifts up and up, to the top of Axis station, the uppermost three stories. Carousel. There were pressure windows all around, where you could sit and watch the whole system swing by as Axis spun and spun. And, more importantly, there were flops and drink bars, drug bars and restaurants and 3D theatres, clubs and fights and a few virtual stimulation parlors - VStim - where you could play sports or walk ‘picturesque’ hikes. Every entertainment, every vice, every sin was catered to, and all of Carousel was lit up, flashing, roaring wide open with music and voices, laughter and shouts. Bodies in every state of sobriety, intoxication, dress and undress, reeled from door to door, floor to floor, and Jared grinned, threw back his shoulders and strode in.

He loved it here - loved the noise and the glitter, the tacky decorations and flashing signs, the neon and twinkle lights, the greasy, savory, spicy smells of foods from every corner of the known ‘verse. Here you could buy bootleg music, there you could hear it live, and further along were girls and boys and others to sample. There were even some pockets of alien trade; expensive, illicit, for the discerning customer only.

Jared bought a slab of sweet bread that was stuffed with eggs and cheese and synth-meat, a squeeze-bottle of some kind of alcohol-laced juice, and walked on, eating, drinking, watching. He made his way toward the club in the advert, the one called Purgatory, and when he got there, he squeezed out the last of his drink and tossed the bottle, then paid his door-fee with the anonymous card at his waist. The bass-heavy thrum that poured from the open door made his bones sing, and Jared stepped off the concourse and into a solid _wall_ of music. He followed the crowded catwalk around the pit of the dance floor, watching the seethe and ebb of the bodies below him as they leapt and twisted, writhed and shimmied in time. Colored spots and bars of light danced with them, and puffs of scented vapor eddied, confusing to the eye, and Jared blinked and looked away but kept walking, past the bar and the access to the restrooms and on around, to the halfway point. Breathing hard, and a tiny bit wobbly in the knees, because he’d been in zero-g for eight weeks, the not-quite-Earth gravity of Carousel was wearing him out. A cluster of tables and tall stools loomed out of the murk, most of them occupied. A pair of dancers writhed in a cage overhead, Devil and Angel, twisting around each other, androgynous and stained with glittering dyes and sliding light. 

Jared ducked under the cage - he was almost too tall to do it comfortably - and headed into the pitch-black shadows beyond. One, two, three steps and he walked through a silencer, the dampening field tickling his skin. He felt like he’d suddenly gone deaf, the absence of the club noise was so profound. A dimly-lit hall stretched ahead, and he walked down it to a pressure door, put out his left hand for a burst of light to scan, pinging off the miniscule chip embedded there, at the top of a bone.

It looked like a fleck of carbon, something his body had sealed over and left when he’d nearly crushed it a year ago, bad day in the mine. In reality, it was ID and passport and a lot of other things, and the door hissed open, allowing Jared to step through to his _real_ destination, headquarters for a group of people who called themselves the _Advocatus Diaboli_. Jared had been told that meant the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ - Satan to the Company’s ANGEL system. The Devil in the ANGEL.

He slipped inside, into a wide, tall room scattered with desks and chairs, shelves full of printouts and tables full of cobbled together computers and dataspots, none of which were registered. Over a dozen people were already there, and he lifted a hand in greeting as he walked straight to the small medical set-up in the corner. Gazes followed him as he walked, speculative, and the air in the small room seemed to vibrate with an undertone of suppressed excitement. Jared did his best to shrug it off, trying not to let it get to him. It could be good news - but it could be something bad, too. Time enough for that. Doc was over in her corner, seemingly asleep, though Jared knew better. He pulled out a chair and spun it, sitting in it backwards, chest braced against the back. He reached around, hitching his sweater hem up. The drug pack that the Company doctor had attached earlier sat there, mercury-silver bubble atop the ANGEL port in his spine. 

“Hey, Doc,” Jared said, and the doctor stirred from her slump in the corner, yawning.

“Hey, Jared. Let’s see, let’s see.” She snapped on gloves and adjusted the glasses perched on her nose. They were sophisticated little scanners, showing her anything from the surface of Jared’s skin to his spinal column to his spleen, if she wanted. She didn’t really need them, though - she just liked to look, she said.

Jared felt her fingertips touching gently around the pack and then the little ticking hiss of the decoupler in her hand as it told the pack to let go. It slid out and off and into Doc’s hand and Jared sat up, tugging his sweater back down and pushing his hands back through his hair.

“Perfect, thank you. How’re you feeling?” Doc asked, sliding the pack into a small, glassine machine that would carefully examine and extract every molocule in the pack.

“A little floaty, actually. Maybe some of it got through?”

“It’s possible.” Doc picked up another little gadget - one Jared had repaired a couple times - and held it out. Jared made a face, but he slid his index finger inside and tried not to wince as a lancet pricked his skin. From the snorting noise the Doc made, he didn’t succeed. The machine hummed happily, drawing a few drops of blood, and Jared tugged his finger free and stuck it in his mouth.

“You’re such a wimp,” Doc said, grinning, and she handed Jared a bright-yellow sucker on a black-and-white striped stick. 

“But you’ve got the best ‘I’m sorry’ candy around,” Jared said, grinning back before shoving the sucker into his mouth. It was sour-sweet and very _yellow_ , and it made his tongue tingle a little. Just a touch of ‘dust to give him a little edge. “So what’s the verdict?”

Doc hummed along with her machine, tapping at a holo keypad that shimmered on her table-top, blue eyes seeming to sparkle behind the weirdly refractive lenses of her glasses. Her short, spiky hair was bright red this time, like blood, and she had a new tattoo that climbed up her throat and around the hinges of her jaws, thready lines and arabesques in a vital green.

“Looks like there was a little bleed-through, but not much. Can’t hope for better, really. Can’t make that membrane on your port any thicker or somebody’ll notice. But it was only a couple milligrams, nothing you can’t handle.” She stripped off her gloves and got a fresh pair, tapped a code into a little, locked ‘fridge unit and took out a prepped syringe, a tiny thing the size of her pinky, filled with a pale, almost luminous liquid. Jared resignedly pulled his arm out of his sweater, bunching the fabric around his neck, and Doc took his bicep in her hand, pinched up a bit of muscle on the back and gave it a quick swipe with an alcohol pad. She looked over her glasses at Jared. “You ready?”

“I’m not five,” Jared muttered, but he looked away and didn’t twitch when the short, slender needle slid into his arm. He could feel the drug flowing in, cold burn, and he hissed out a breath between gritted teeth. Doc patted his arm.

“All done.”

“Fucking ow,” Jared muttered. He shoved his arm back into the sweater sleeve and smoothed it down, dragged the sucker across his tongue and out of his mouth, pursing his lips around it. “Thanks, Doc.”

Doc laughed. “Save your skills for the mark, pretty. I’m immune.”

“Like hell,” Jared laughed. But he shoved the candy back between his teeth and got up, heading for the cluster of desks and tables where most of the rest of the people were, barring Jack, who was over in the opposite corner, doing some kind of complicated weapons’ maintenance, and the Jo boys at the security desk, monitoring the club and the surrounds for anything not right. A handful of holos hovered in the center, information and spreadsheets and code whipping by or slowing to a crawl as someone pointed something out to the group, or someone else made a change.

Jared found a chair, a couple people shuffling and making room, and he slumped down, listening with half an ear to the current discussion, something about stocks and indexes and other, incomprehensible money talk. He was more the hands-on guy in this group, though really only three of the dozen or so people there were actually virtual only - most of them got their hands dirty in the real world.

“So, that’s that.” Raleigh tapped a few holos closed and sat back, stretching his back and neck, his hands going to cup the back of his skull as he arched up in his chair. The tape-patched monstrosity groaned in warning, and he slumped back down. “Hey, Jared, good to see you back. We got a job for you.”

“Awesome,” Jared said. He sat up, twirling the candy in his mouth, and Celeste snorted, sipping at a half-empty cup of some kind of coffee drink that was weirdly pale and greenish, but smelled pretty good. “What’s the job?”

“Got a guy we want you to bring in. He’s been here almost two months, landed just after you went out last time.” Raleigh’s voice was casual, but the tension was back, in the tightness of the man’s thin shoulders and the wary little glances Celeste kept giving Jared. Raleigh leaned forward again, bringing up a new holo, this one with several images and a scroll of vital stats. Jared leaned in for a closer look as about half of the others got up, moving away to attend to their own business or check on ongoing jobs, not a few giving him backward glances. 

The guy in the images was too thin, but pretty - pretty like a little alley cat, half-starved but still fighting. His long, dark-brown hair curved raggedly around his face and throat, and his eyes were an unexpected green. The images were mostly stills; a couple from when he landed, disembarking from a Company security ship and looking shell-shocked and dazed. A couple more were the man at some kind of dull, cramped work station, presumably a job, and the same guy in an all-night emergency clinic and in the drunk tank and then down in the core, curled into an alcove somewhere, nest of castoffs and trash.

“Well, shit,” Jared said, frowning. “That went fast.”

“Yeah, well.” Raleigh flicked the images back into a folder and dragged out another one. It was the same guy, but he looked younger - at least ten years - with his hair in a buzz-cut, standing under unnaturally bright lights. He had a black eye, a cut on his chin and one on his neck, and what looked like rug burn or a bad scrape on his cheek and jaw. He wore a tattered white tee and dirt, and was holding an intake board. It was a _prison_ shot, and Jared frowned, leaning forward to squint at the date. 

“That’s- Hey, wait. No fucking way. It says he was born in 2229. That’s over sixty years ago. The guy’s not that old.”

“Yeah, he is. Kinda. He’s an ArchANGEL. Or he was, up until about six months ago.”

Jared stared at the holo, of a young, battered man with bruised knuckles and dead eyes. He could feel his heart starting to pound, thumping in his chest. “ArchANGELs don’t live that long past mustering out, everybody knows that.” He looked away from the holo, up at Raleigh and Celeste. “We all know that, right? I mean- none of them...have.”

“This one did.” Celeste said, and she was grinning, tight and toothy, patchy flush of excitement staining her cheeks. “We think- Well, obviously, something happened and his ‘net...mutated. It’s working _without_ the packs, but without the viral boost, either. It’s not a hundred percent or anything, but he’s not dead, so….”

“So you want me to bring him in.” Jared dragged the holo closer and flipped back through the other images - the stats and info the Devils had acquired on the guy. If he’d been an ArchANGEL, then...he’d spent most of his time shipboard, jumping from mission to mission, port to port. Living a life of suspended animation, aging at a fraction of the speed of humans who never went Between. Hell, in real-time, he might have only aged a dozen years or so - was still a lot closer to the guy in the last image than he was the guy sleeping in trash. What a head trip.

“Yeah, this guy, we _gotta_ have him. If what we think is true, Jared, he’s the next stage. He’s _it_. He’s our fucking silver bullet.” Celeste’s voice shook, just a little, but Jared didn’t blame her. He couldn’t quite get a full breath, himself. A working ‘net - without Company drugs. _Spontaneous_ mutation past the blockers and kill switches the Company installed. The things that made you, one hundred percent, dependent on Company drugs and Company doctors and the _Company_ until the day you died, because without the little resets the Company had worked into every drug pack, the ANGEL system would die. Or, at the very least, stop working.

“Fucking...hell,” Jared said, grinning so hard it hurt, and Celeste made an exaggerated ‘oh my god!’ face at him, her hands slapping rapidly down onto her thighs, a jittery crescendo. 

“Yeah, he is - or, might be. We gotta _know_.” Raleigh looked about as excited as mud, but Jared could see the sheen of sweat on his temples, and the way his hands shook, ever so slightly. Keeping it all in check until he was _sure_ , that was Raleigh. “The other thing is, uh….” Raleigh’s gaze flicked around the room and Jared realized everyone was watching, even Doc and the Jo boys.

“Fuck’s sake, what?”

“He’s- He was born shipboard, Jared. On...the _Glorianna_.”

“No he wasn’t,” Jared said, automatic. And then _looked_ at Raleigh. “Wha-what?” he stuttered, feeling the shock of that information like a dousing of ice water, more of a shock than the thought of a living, ex ArchANGEL. His heart skipped and then slammed into a faster beat, painful in its intensity, and he could feel his breaths shortening, making him lightheaded. The remains of his sucker slipped out of his hand, forgotten. 

“Hey, c’mon, take it easy,” Doc said, looming out of nowhere with a little cup of water and a damp fiber towel that she slapped on the back of his neck. Jared took in a hard, unsteady breath and took the water in a shaking hand. “Need a minute?”

“Yeah...no. Fuck no, tell me how...how is that-? How is that...possible?”

“Remember when they found her? I know you’ve read about it. There were kids on that ship already, ones that had survived whatever sent her drifting, and the fire about ten years later. He’s one of them. A survivor. An _original_. He’s about the only one left.”

“Fuck, holy...fuck.” Jared stared at the too-pretty face, the feral cat’s eyes that promised nothing good if you fucked with him. “He’s not - we’re not - related or, or anything-?”

“No, no. Totally different cell-line. But the markers were there, and the database is online for those that can fiddle it. He’s...one of you.”

Jerad tossed the mouthful of water in the cup down his throat and swallowed, then crumpled the flimsy thing in his fist. His moms had thought they’d picked a donor, and sperm, from a random bank assortment, nothing special, just...what was there. But Jared had found out, at the same time he’d joined the Devils, that the Company had gotten ownership of all the cryo-stored DNA, eggs and sperm that were left in the _Glorianna_. They’d secured them and hidden them away, and, out of sight and knowledge of the general public and even the government, they’d inserted selected lots of them into donor banks all around the ‘verse, because whatever had made those gene sets special for the _Glorianna_ \- whatever had made old Earth choose them over billions - made them special to the Company. Special, different - untouched by all the years of man’s going out into the stars, and changing in ways no one had ever expected. Old stuff, the _Glorianna_ get were. Old, and a little strange, and apparently perfect. 

And when those kids were born, one way or another they became Company property. Because the Company wanted lives, needed them, and a creche and children being turned out like so many parts on an assembly line would be just a little _too_ conspicuous. Curing Grimes wasn’t the reason they’d instituted the lottery on Kin-Gin and a dozen other worlds. They had _notions_ , the Company did. They had plans. They wanted bodies to experiment on; they wanted to see just _what_ the ANGEL system could do, unfettered by regulations and government interference, unfettered by families who wondered just what had happened to their sons and daughters. The children of the _Glorianna_ \- the Company’s indentured millions - were orphans. Every last one of them.

Jared took a deep, shaky breath and then he looked up. He gazed around the room for a moment, from this to that look of concern, of curiosity. Then he looked back at Celeste, and then at Raleigh. 

“Okay. Okay. Tell me everything, I need to know...everything. He’s mine.”


	6. Chapter 6

_So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,_  
_Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,_  
_Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,_  
_Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible…._ \- Rupert Brooke, ‘Hauntings’

 

Axis was an old station - oldest in that system - and Jensen remembered it, and that was a problem. He remembered it when it was nothing but girders and temporary panels and empty echoes. Remembered high-liners, up in what would become Carousel, sending down fountains of sparks as they welded and riveted the armature together, sending crazy echoes bouncing down and down to the core.

Axis was smaller then, and brand-new, and not even a sure thing, and the _Tiamat_ had been sent there on a routine patrol, keeping pirates and looters at bay until they could establish enough of the station to lock things up and out. 

Being in it now - seeing it go from skeleton to teeming - was disorienting. Was downright frightening, because Jensen had no idea what _else_ he’d missed, in his years shipboard. It hadn’t mattered there where he was safe with his Angels, all together in quarters, in mess, moving like a single organism on mission after mission. New vids or new music or new drugs filtered in, and news sometimes, if Five was feeling particularly antsy, but all of it was so...far away. Unimportant. Even on Reveille, they’d kept that kind of stuff to a minimum - ‘limiting the stressors’, they’d called it.

But here in the new Axis - the _now_ Axis - it felt like the stressors were killing him. Every light was too bright, every sound was too much: percussive, invasive, deafening. Even the food was overwhelming; so many variations, so many spices. They made his lips tingle and his gut heave until he gave up on most food altogether and stuck to the stuff in the automats, wedges of cold sandwiches and chilled fruit, everything simpler, plainer. 

He had to deal, though, because what he needed was mostly only for sale in Carousel. Sure, there were suits and tourists palming little glassine baggies of this and that in white-tiled heads all over the station, but that was _by appointment only_ stuff. That was _this is my friend_ stuff, and there weren’t that many suits on Axis that wanted rough cut, and that was all Jensen had to trade to those arrogant bastards.

And fuck that, he was no whore. Not for the likes of them.

No, he had to have the shadows for what he needed; had to have the dealers with the illegal cautery knife and hired muscle; had to have the ones who cooked up in stills cobbled together in maintenance tunnels and service bays - ones that could be moved in a minute’s notice. He needed what _they_ sold, and they only sold on Carousel. 

So here he was, trying not to look too fucking crazy, ‘cause the dealers weren’t stupid and they didn’t want trouble. Problem was, Jensen _was_ crazy. He felt crazy. He felt like everything around him was moving just a few degrees off from him - a little too fast, a little too loud, a little too _much_. He wore heavy mining pants and layers of shirts, half-gloves and eye shades and even a long, dun strip of cloth he’d stole from a vendor, winding it around his head and neck and face. Wrapping up and hiding more and more every week, and he figured in another month he’d just be a moving lump of cloth, no eyes, no fingers. He sweated and shivered and flinched even in his ‘armor’, jumping at every noise and exhausting himself with endless, repetitive security checks. Everybody moved around too much, so fucking careless and _random_. He had to keep the most suspicious of them in sight, had to keep them all in place so he had to keep moving, moving, moving.

And he couldn’t do that without the drugs, and he couldn’t _get_ the drugs without the drugs, and if he didn’t get the drugs he couldn’t eat the bland, chilled food and drink the nothing-tasting water and he couldn’t fucking _sleep_... Fuck, that was the worst, when he hadn’t slept for two or three days and everything seemed to vibrate and nothing made any fucking _sense_.

He’d fled to the core - they called it Axis Mundi, which meant nothing to Jensen - catching a ride on the top of the shell of a maintenance mag-lift, clinging in the safe dark to the hand-holds welded there for the fixer crews. Down in the core were kilometers of access tunnels and conduits, built big enough for two men to walk through, that had been abandoned as Axis had grown out, pushing her skin wider and leaving hollows behind. They were mostly on power-save, kept warm by the residual heat flowing through water mains and banks of circuitry, and the tiny chemical heaters scattered here and there that marked places and spaces and no-go private niches. 

Jensen had his own place, an alcove under a heat exchange, warm and softly humming, dry and defendable and safe. An access ladder went up into the exchanger and eventually out, a secondary exit if he was ever trapped. He’d lined the space with wads of hemp pulp stolen from the recycler on level 23, and, a rare find, a left-behind medical blanket he’d found shoved under an overturned locker in an abandoned first aid station. But best - oh, best of all - were the markings. The dense, flowing lines and angular sketches, a rare and private code of symbols and shapes and traceries. Same as on the _Tiamat_ , same as anywhere any Angel had spent any time. Jensen thought maybe even one of _his_ , from that long-ago port call, had found this alcove amongst the construction bustle and spent a little time leaving this behind. ‘Hello’ and ‘safe’ and ‘good hiding’. ‘Fuck’ and ‘fly’ and ‘angel, angel, angel’. 

When the nightmares and the come-downs were worst, they kept Jensen grounded - helped him get his shit together so he could face another trip up top. He’d even added his own name, painstaking and shaky, just like inside his clothes, making it _his_ , a secret just for him.

Right now, Jensen was curled up in his alcove, knotted and shivering and sick. Coming down, sure, but something else, too. His body was still rejecting the ‘net - agonizing cramps all through his muscles, and his nerves firing off, random and hot, sizzling under his skin. His head was splitting and his skin felt too tight and he couldn’t get his head on straight, he couldn’t get himself grounded. His vision kept flashing, from the amber and red of the security lights to something flat and dead, corpse light, grey-blue and hideous. Every time it happened, his head went to static, the nothingness of an empty channel, no words and no _thoughts_. 

Wherever that was was cold, and stank, and it made his belly ache and his teeth and oh, _fuck_ , he hated it there, he fucking hated it, he had to get out of there, get something, get high and get gone before he, before….

Jensen already had his sweater on, over a tee from Reveille, and he forced himself up and dragged on two more shirts - long-sleeved, oversized - and the coat he wore on top. He wound the cloth around his head and found his eye shades, patting them where they rested in a pocket. He inched out of his nest and stood with a low groan of pain and then, slowly, so slowly, shuffled away down the corridor. 

Tick-Tock would help him. He’d owe him, but that was what Tick-Tock worked in: favors and debts and IOUs. And better Tick-Tock than anybody else. Better than...the no-place. Tick-Tock would get him a taste - a hit - just enough to get him settled, so he could go topside and get what he _really_ needed. Tick-Tock would spot him the credit for that, too, and that was fine, that was good. Jensen would pay him back later, when the drugs were kicking in good and hard and he was flying again, wings not clipped.

Tick-Tock ran the fights that happened up in Carousel every few nights. They were bloody and ugly and desperate, but winner take all and give half to Tick-Tock, and that would set Jensen up for a week, solid, let him get himself back into a groove so he could get another runner job, ferrying product or collecting kickbacks. He didn’t have his suit anymore, didn’t have his Angels, but he could still gut you six ways before you could scream, and sometimes somebody needed that. Jensen didn’t much care, so long as it bought him free of the no-place, and the pain, for another day.

 

So this was him, on the edge of not-quite-enough, moving jittery and too tense. Fuck only knows what was in that hit of Tock’s, some shit he’d made himself in his spare time, or scrounged - Tick-Tock was straight-X, never took nothing, so he was no judge.

And fuck if someone wasn’t on Jensen’s tail. He’d noticed before - a few days ago, a couple nights - somebody watching, shadowing him. There was always too much going on - on Carousel and in Jensen’s head - for him to really have a good picture of his watcher. Jensen just knew he was tall, and quick, and pretty damn good, but not as good as an Angel, and it was starting to piss Jensen off.

But he had a deal to make, and a fight to get to, so he put the tail out of his mind and concentrated on casing out his route, on finding his hit. Sticking to the edges, dodging careless walkers, trying hard not to snarl and snap at every idiot who got too close. His guy was set up at the back of a noodle-soup kiosk, this time, and Jensen got ‘dust and Blue and a twist of foil with an ugly little dab of stuff called icing in it, grey-green and glistening. He got a bowl of soup, too, ‘cause he’s gotta have something to burn, and ate it fast, noodles going down slick and nearly tasteless, broth mostly just salt. Perfect food for a junkie in a fix, and that’s the beauty of _that_ set up, you can sell to ‘em before _and_ after.

By the time he’d drunk the last of the broth, he was already soaring, just like a rocket - higher and higher - and if he timed it just right he’d hit apogee in the ring, and Tick-Tock’d really get his money’s worth. He got another ladleful of noodles, ‘cause he could - scrounged credit Tick-Tock had no notion of - and slipped a squeeze-bottle of some flavored water under his coat when Tay wasn’t watching. 

He wandered off, then, slurping the noodles down and drinking the water that was full of sugar with a chemical kick, dodging the crowd and sliding into the shadows around a corner, crouching down out of sight and waiting to see…. There. His tail, slouching by, all casual-like, hands tucked into pockets and long hair hanging anyhow, looking like some miner, broke and sad, or maybe hungover as he wove in and out of the crowd. And Jensen still couldn’t really see his face, just shadow and light and edges, things _moving_ that probably shouldn’t move. Maybe he shouldn't have had the icing on top of it all, but fuck it.

His tail moved on, probably panicking now, having lost him, and Jensen pushed himself upright, empty bowl and bottle abandoned, and dodged _away_ , into the service corridors behind the kiosks, all the places nobody was supposed to go but he had a key that Tick-Tock had cloned, so Jensen could get to the fights.

He wondered if it was really such a big secret. Surely Axis knew, with her thousands of digital eyes, what they did. Surely the bodies that slid down into the big incinerator weren’t a surprise. Probably she looked on it like pest control: thinning the herd. Not one of them would be missed, after all.

Jensen found the storage bay in fifteen minutes, following the little phosphor-glow arrows painted down low in the corridors; following the low, surging noise of a crowd of people too high to be scared, and too scared to be straight. He gave Tick-Tock a head’s up nod and climbed up on top of a pile of abandoned shelving, only a head or so higher than the crowd, but it settled his nerves, at least a little. He settled into an easy crouch to watch and wait his turn, back to the corner and a bar of steel-plex propped under his hand, a palm knife made from a wedge of ground-down alloy nestled in his glove. Safe, for the moment, cocooned in chemical strands; 1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine, (5α,6α)-7,8-didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methylmorphinan-3,6-diol diacetate…. He could see the formulas in his head, arcane scratchings over Kane’s bunk, memorized over time. Kane’s favorites, or so he said, but who fucking knew, Kane was...Kane was….

Jensen snapped his head to the side once, hard, solid crack into the wall there, dislodging Kane and Angels, concentrating on the muffled pain. It was almost his turn. When Tick-Tock gave him the nod, Jensen stepped down off his perch and moved to the little roped-off area for the next in line. Stripped down, out of his layers, to nothing at all, because that was the _rules_ in Tick-Tock’s fights, so nobody could hide a weapon or a bio-limb. He watched the last of the fight still going on, two men close to motionless on the floor, arms and legs wrapped around, blood spattered over the spray-painted circle they fought in. 

After a long, long moment of seemingly nothing, the one behind - dark-skinned, thick-chested - made a sharp movement of arms and hands and there was a muffled _crack_. The other went limp - neck jerked clean through - and the noise of the crowd surged like a wave, echoing off the overhead. The winner staggered upright and limped to the ready-box, giving Jensen one long, dazed look as he passed. Jensen just bared his teeth, bouncing on the balls of his feet, skin tingling in the chill. He dipped his fingers into the can of machine grease Tick-Tock kept ready and slicked it back through his hair, so as to keep his opponent from getting a grip and using it against him. 

The woman he was fighting was a couple inches taller than him, muscled and big in the chest. She’d used some of Tick’s bandage tape to tape down her breasts and she had welder’s scars on her knuckles and forearms, a dappling of spots where sparks and molten metal had landed. She had other scars, too - marks up the inside of her arm and along her throat, some drug she took through the vein. She gave him a blank look from under her lashes, her light hair a weird, pale green from the grease. Fucking desperate, to fight him - had to be.

Then Tick-Tock was calling them in and Jensen stalked into the ring, rolling his head on his shoulders, flexing his hands, feeling himself slide into that place in his head, that place of nothing and nowhere, a pre-fight bubble that let him breathe - let him just _be_. The crowd’s noise was nothing, just the rolling growl of an engine, background to the steady rush of Jensen’s breathing, to the thump of his heart.

He crouched slightly, hands easy at his thighs, ready-steady and...go.

 

When he surfaced again, the noise of the crowd was an animal thing, raw and nearly hysterical, and Jensen blinked down at the woman’s body - at the shredded flesh of her throat and the spreading pool of blood around her. He blinked and swallowed and almost brought it right back up, the iron-salt slick of blood in his belly. Instead, he breathed, spat and spat again, and then walked, stiff-legged, out of the ring. His throat hurt - must have been screaming. There were wads of damp hemp pulp in a plastic bin and Jensen used a couple to haphazardly wipe himself down and then dress, layer after layer. He was shaking now, falling fast, and he looped the cloth around his throat, yanked on his gloves, and turned to find Tick-Tock looking down at him.

“Good show,” Tick said, tall and skeletal and weirdly grey from some illness that had leached color and texture from his dark skin until he looked like something left to disintegrate under water. His couple of dozen chronos laddered his bone-thin forearms and were looped around his neck and across the lattice of his ribs, ticking and chiming and flashing, all different times, none of them right. 

“Gimme my cut,” Jensen said, teeth gritted hard against chattering, and Tick fished in one pocket for a cracked reader, then in another pocket for a blank debit card. He programmed something into the reader and then zipped the card through and handed it to Jensen. It would work - they always did - and he could even get hard credit off a bank machine, if some truly paranoid dealer demanded it. 

“Code’s here,” Tick-Tock said, and Jensen put out his arm - suffered through Tick pushing up his sleeve and writing a five number code onto the skin of Jensen’s wrist, the slightly squishy tip of the surgical pen cold against his skin. The ink was a lurid sort of purple, almost fluorescent. “Next week, then?”

“Dunno. Maybe. I gotta - I g-g-g-ot-”

“Yeah, you go,” Tick-Tock said, and Jensen shoved the card in under his coat and walked jerkily away. His legs felt leaden, and yet as hollow as blown glass at the same time - apt to shatter at any moment. _All_ his bones were too thin, he could feel them fracturing under the weight of his momentum; stress lines climbing his shins and crazing his femurs. He had to get through the crowd, snarling and snapping at the few who reached out, who tried to congratulate him, pull him into some celebration. Sweating under his layers, he was cold as ice, his ribs too small and too tight, crushing down around his lungs.

He staggered out into the warmer air of the corridor and sagged there a moment, leaning against the wall and breathing hard, cursing under his breath. Fucking ‘dust. Fucking _Blue_. Never should put them together like that, and then the adrenaline rush and the alien cocktail of icing - some adreno-endorphin-pituitary thing cooked up from the unformed offspring of one of the three alien races out there. They laid eggs by the thousands so a handful could survive and didn’t care what anyone did with the leftovers. Trust humans, Jensen thought, to turn ‘em into something to get you high.

Not-quite-babies in embryonic sacs and the twilight of the birthing labs and the low, endless moaning because they were dying, all dying, no doctors anymore, so many babies and all of them dying-

Jensen made an inarticulate, agonized noise and slammed his head against the corridor wall, making his head sing and his vision blacken and wow, was that bone, was his skull shattered now?

“Idiot, fuck, not glass, got to move, got to go….” Pressed against the wall, he stumbled forward, sliding along, eyes mostly shut and his head leaving a swipe of blood behind, slippery. Made it easier to move, blood always did, hot inside, cold outside, slick and salt and it made your teeth a funny color after a while, never forget that corpse-grin-

He cracked his head again, welcoming the pain - the distraction - and dragged himself around a corner, and another, the light flickering - bad fixture maybe - dark and light, dark and light, on and off.

Jensen’s knees went to water and he almost went down, barely saving himself on an inset emergency hold, the kind that were scattered here and there, in case the power went - zero-g in Carousel a nightmare nobody wanted to consider, three stories high and nowhere to hunker down.

He hung there, gulping in air, fingers pressing tight against his eyelids, and when he looked up, someone was there, dark against the light, tall, watching him. Jensen pressed his hand against his thigh, sliding his home-made blade into his palm and trying to just fucking _stand up_.

“Fuck off,” he grated, throat stinging, and the figure moved closer, coming clear. Man - tall man - his fucking _tail_ , and Jensen felt fear-flight crash through him, shock of _hotcold_ and his belly went tight, his knees locked, braced for whatever came next. “I ss-said fuck _off_!”

“Jensen?” the man asked, and Jensen recoiled, staring. He blinked rapidly to clear his gaze, fuck, who _was_ this? He had to see, figure this out, nobody _knew_ him, nobody, he’d been so fucking careful. The man inched even closer, bending just a little, and light fell across his face. Pretty face. Broad forehead under long, dark hair, pointed nose, and eyes that tilted up, just a little. Hazel eyes, so familiar...familiar.

He’d seen that face. Nearly that face. Fuck, what _was_ it? He knew, he knew, somewhere...younger, thinner, but that face, that face….

The knowledge crashed down on him, like a wall, like a wave. It crushed him to his knees, it was _suffocating_ him, and Jensen could hear himself saying something - screaming something - swinging his body out and back again, into the wall, head ringing, blood like water down his cheekbone, again, again, because he _remembered_ that face, he _remembered_ and he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to, no _please_ don’t fucking remember, don’t go there, don’t go, _don’tdon’tdon’t **go** there!_

The last thing he saw was the face, him, _him_ , bending down, reaching down, and then a sting in the side of his neck and Jensen was down, done, gone, boom.


	7. Chapter 7

_...Sometime am I_  
 _All wound with adders who with cloven tongues_  
 _Do hiss me into madness._ \- Caliban, Act 2, scene 2, 'The Tempest'

 

Jared thought he was going to throw up. Or maybe faint, though he really fucking hoped not. But his ears were ringing and his belly was heaving and he kept having to swallow, his mouth filling with cold, slick spit. Jensen was…. Fuck, he was _covered_ in blood. It was because it was his head - Jared _knew_ this - but it looked like he was _dead_ , limp on the gurney that Jared was trying (and failing) to help push, stumbling over his own feet, his hands shaking.

He’d brought in others, before this - others with the ANGEL system, others crushed under debt and obligation, under fear. It had made his heart pound and his skin flush, adrenalin and a little fear, but mostly excitement. But never, _never_....

God, he’d thought Jensen was going to literally bash his own brains out, slamming himself into the bulkhead over and over; that _noise_ , sick-wet crunch. Almost as bad had been the _sounds_ \- the guttural, animal _bellows_ \- that had coughed out of Jensen’s mouth, wordless and senseless, pain and anger.

The gurney clacked over a seam in the floor and Jensen’s head lolled on his neck. His eyes mostly shut, blood was a solid, scarlet sheet down the right side of his face and throat, trailing in lines across his cheekbone, his jaw, his forehead, a thick, crimson stain all down the shoulder of his jacket, the collar. Fuck, it was everywhere. The sliver of eye that Jared could see was glazed and lifeless. Jared swallowed _hard_ and looked away.

It was the Jo boys who manhandled the gurney, dressed in fake EMT gear, getting it into a mag-lift and using a special, coded card - forged - to lock the lift out of the system for the ride. It took all four of them down and sideways, halfway around the monolithic ‘stem’ of the station to a bolt-hole carved out by the Devils, a safe space for them to hide Jensen away until…. Until.

Jared leaned against the wall just inside the door, watching the Jo boys lock the gurney into place inside a scaffold of polycarbonate tubes. He flinched, startled, when Raleigh came through the door a moment later, Doc right behind him. She moved immediately to Jensen’s side, disposable gown tied loosely at the back, face shield protecting the scanners. She snapped on gloves, listening intently to the litany of vitals the taller Jo boy was rattling off. The shorter one was efficiently slicing every bit of Jensen’s clothing off him, not bothering to even attempt salvaging anything.

“Jared, you okay?” Raleigh asked, bumping Jared’s shoulder with his own, and Jared gulped and took in a hard, stuttery breath, nodding jerkily.

“Yeah, I- Fuck, Raleigh. I’m okay, but he- Did you see? He...he really...fucked himself up.”

“He’ll be okay. Angel, remember?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Jared muttered. He wiped his face on his sleeve, clammy sweat cool in the chilled room, and dared another sidelong glance at Jensen. Jo One stripped the last of the clothing off Jensen, leaving him naked on the gurney, thin and pale. His entire left shoulder, side, and thigh was a mass of livid bruising, and it looked like more were coming up on his belly and chest. There were raw spots where he’d been ‘burned’ from friction with the floor, and a scattering of scratches that were welling with blood again, lately-formed scabs ripped away with the clothes. Under all that mess, Jensen’s skin was grayish with indifferent hygiene, blue-white and bloodless under the unforgiving halogen spots. He looked...fucking horrifying.

_And he **won**_ , Jared thought, swallowing again. Hating what that implied. As he watched, Doc got an IV started in Jensen’s right forearm, taping it securely down. The taller Jo boy - Jo Two - put a nasal cannula under Jensen’s nose for oxygen, while Jo One hung various monitoring equipment off the scaffold, arranging it all to Doc’s specifications. Then, they both unrolled and wrapped around Jensen’s wrists and ankles soft-looking restraints, buckling them snugly. 

“Fuck,” Jared muttered, not liking that at all, but-

“You know we have to,” Raleigh said quietly, and Jared nodded. He _did_ know. Jensen was an addict, in withdrawal, a trained soldier and, above all, an Angel. Without restraints, he’d hurt himself - he’d hurt _them_. And that wasn’t the plan.

Doc finished hanging the last IV bag - one big one of saline, and a cluster of four or five smaller ones - and stepped back with a sigh. “So, this is the best I can do. He’s lucky as hell. The most worrying things are two basal fractures of the temporal and zygomatic bones-” Doc saw the looks on Jared’s and Raleigh’s faces and shot them a weak little grin. “He cracked his skull, but not too badly; there’s some swelling but it doesn't look like any brain damage or hemorrhaging. If he wasn’t so damn malnourished, he’d have been strong enough to give himself a depressed fracture and drive bone fragments into his brain.” She tugged the face shield up and off, running a hand back through her spiky hair. “He’s got four stress fractures in his ribs, one in his femur and a chip out of his left ulna, two broken fingers and three broken toes, plus numerous contusions, including some deep muscle ones we’re gonna have to keep an eye on.”

“ _Fuck_.” Jared ran a shaking hand over his mouth. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he will be. Once we get all that shit out of his system, get some damn vitamins in him, keep him hydrated.... He’ll be okay.” Doc lifted her scanner glasses up onto the top of her head and watched as the Jo boys got a catheter in, got the broken fingers straightened out and taped together, stuck a handful of sticky telemetry patches to Jensen’s bruised chest, and finally settled a thin thermal blanket over his lax body. 

“The trick’s gonna be keeping him calm and hoping like hell he hasn’t burned out too many brain cells with the crap he’s been ingesting.” 

“Do you know-?” Raleigh started, and Doc held up her hand with three vials of blood between her long fingers.

“I’m on it. Gonna double-check everything we think we know, run a tox screen - all that. The Jo boys are gonna get set up next door, and Jared-” Doc looked him up and down, and made a small, pained face. “You should get cleaned up.”

Jared looked down at himself, confused, and finally realized that the uncomfortable sensation of his clothes sticking to him wasn’t sweat but Jensen’s blood, and he _was_ going to be sick, right fucking then. He barely made it to the toilet in time.

 

Once Jared had gotten a shower and a change of clothes, he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and carefully went through all of Jensen’s cut-up, blood-drenched clothing. They weren’t particularly clean, or new - there were holes and stains and badly-done patches - and the only things that had really survived were the heavy coat, and the long scarf Jensen had been wearing, wrapped around his throat and head. 

Jared took his time, feeling every seam and turning everything inside-out, and his haul was depressingly small. A non-descript debit card, still shiny and new; various pieces of wire and metal, most pared down to sharp edges; a makeshift knife, scrap and tape, with a razor-sharp edge; a battered package of candy, pale sugar coating over white discs, cheap and sugary and mostly dust, now. Also, a scrap of paper with Jensen’s name on it, written in tiny, crabbed, handwriting, shaky and smeared, over and over. 

It was the last thing Jared found that made no sense, until it abruptly did. It was the wrapper off something, some kind of thin plastic printed with hologram sparkles, and wrapped up inside it was...trash. Stickers from something, Jared thought; maybe vending-machine food. One had a blue-green wave with a fat little stylized fish grinning out of it; another had a cartoon girl with fly-away hair and little wings on her back, winking. They were bright, supersaturated - childish - and they were carefully stuck in orderly rows on the inside of the wrapper. The wrapper itself was carefully folded around bits of bright string - colors and tinsel twisted together - that maybe had tied a label or a tag onto something, and shards of a broken polycarb globe in sparkling, primary colors, and what look like sequins from a shirt. 

A magpie hoard, it was just _junk_ , and Jared nudged the collection carefully with his fingertips, feeling a tightness in his throat, because he’d _seen_ the inside of troopships, everyone had. Grey corridors and nothing-colored light and everything just...boring. Industrial and colorless. A lot like the Axis Mundi, really. Powered down and stripped of life, the underlying structure of Axis was mostly steel and bland paint in various shades of blue-grey or green-grey or grey-grey. It was ugly and uninspiring, but here...here was a little treasure trove of color and warmth and sparkle, hidden and secret and obviously _important_ , because you don’t carry something like that around with you if it means nothing. Jared swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment and almost crushed the whole collection when, behind him, Jensen made a noise.

Jared jerked around, eyes wide, and saw Jensen staring at him. His hands were working, fisting and then opening, twisting a little, his arms straining against the restraints but not in any coordinated way. It looked like pure reflex, nothing more. His bruised, hollow gaze wasn’t tracking quite right, and Jared had a sudden, sick feeling that maybe he _had_ done some damage, had hurt his brain somehow.

“Hey, hey, Jensen, don’t- Don’t move, okay? You’re...hurt, you broke a couple bones, but you’re- We got you, okay?” Jared glanced frantically over at the big observation window that separated the rooms. Jo One was on the cot, asleep, and Jo Two- Hell. The ‘occupied’ light was lit up on the little cubby of shower and toilet, and Jared dithered for a moment, undecided if he should run next door or just...deal.

Jensen made a noise again, low and kind of hurting, and Jared decided to just deal. He moved to the side of the gurney, the wrapper forgotten in his hand, and stood there, close enough for Jensen to see him, close enough to touch if he thought he should. He didn’t think he should, just yet. 

“Jensen, can you hear me?” Jensen’s gaze tracked slowly to Jared and seemed to focus, and a moment later, Jensen actually nodded, a jerky little bob of his head. “Okay, good, that’s- that’s good. I’m Jared. I- I’m here to help you.”

Jensen stared at him, his fingers working, working - crumpling the paper covering the gurney and letting it go, over and over. He opened his mouth, but the sound that came out was rasping and jumbled, not a word, just noise. His lips were cracked - dry-looking - still etched with thread-fine lines of blood. Jared grimaced and reached for the little wand that hung from the drinking tank one of the Jos had hung up - sterile water, not too cold, and a flexible tube to drink from. 

“Here, you’re probably- You need a drink? Here.” Jared held the wand up, touched the tip of it to Jensen’s mouth and let a couple of drops wet his lips. After a moment, Jensen actually drank, tiny, separate sips that looked like it hurt to swallow, but he did anyway, again and again, until he sighed, turning his face away ever so slightly. 

Jared hooked the wand back into its clip, fumbling the wrapper full of junk he still held, and Jensen was suddenly _staring_ , his whole body gone rigid. 

“Hey, you okay? What’s wrong?”

Jensen jerked against the wrist restraints, a whole-body wrench that made the gurney creak. This time, when he opened his mouth, he _did_ make a noise, the same noise he’d been making in the corridor, low and guttural and horrible. 

“Oh, fuck. Fuck, hey, c’mon, it’s okay, are you-? Does something hurt? Do you need-? What do you-? _Fuck_!”

“Sssss….” Jensen said. Hissed. Spitting through clenched teeth, his gaze was fixed on Jared now, his eyes hectic-bright, pupils blown. “Ssss’mm.”

Jared looked desperately over at the observation window, but Jo One was still out, Jo Two still in the toilet and maybe - maybe that was okay, because if something really _bad_ was happening, the monitors would be going off, there would be alarms.

“Sss mu… _mu-mi...ine_. Mu-mine, sss...mu- _miine!_ ” Jensen’s voice, already raw, broke on the last word, devolving into a painful-sounding rasp, his eyes huge, his face pale and sweating. He was twisting in the restraints now, his whole body trying to break free. Not looking at Jared anymore, looking- 

“Oh _shit_ , I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Jared held the loosely crumpled packet of wrapper and stickers and _things_ out to Jensen; stepped hastily forward and tucked it under his hand and Jensen’s fingers curled around it, squeezing. 

“Ssss _m-mine_ ,” Jensen said again, but his voice wasn’t a growl anymore, it was just a whisper. He wasn’t fighting the restraints anymore, but he was shaking, making the gurney shiver under him, and oh, God, Jared wanted to punch himself, his eyes looked _wet_. Fuck, was he _crying_?

“Jensen, I’m sorry, I wasn’t- I wouldn’t take it, I was just...I didn’t want it to get...lost, I swear-”

Jensen sucked in a hitching breath and blinked, hard. “You died,” Jensen he said, and his voice was...perfectly normal. Flat, and hoarse, but normal. “You _died_ ,” and Jared could only gape at him, bewildered. 

Jensen just stared back, shaking, shaking. Fuck, it wasn’t _stopping_ , that was a seizure or something, that wasn’t right! Jared spun on his heel and ran for the observation room, shouting. Jo One shot up off the cot, dazed, and Jo Two all but fell out of the toilet, towel wrapped around his hips, his hair wet. 

“What the hell?”

“Seizure, something- Fucking help me!” Jared snapped, and then he was running back to Jensen, prying the wadded wrapper out of his hand, ripping at the fastening on the restraints because he was sick, he was _choking_ , and he had to be on his side, now, right the fuck now.

Jo Two belted in, clad only in underwear, a kit of some kind under his arm, yanking on gloves and pushing right past Jared. He spoke into a throat mic to Doc, or Jo One, his words rapid-fire and incomprehensible to Jared, and Jared fell back, and then back again as Jo One ran in, pushing a rattling cart. Jared didn’t know what to do except stay out of the way, and he faded back another step and then another, until he was nearly to the door, the wrapper in his hands. They were shaking, just like Jensen’s, and Jared let his legs fold under him and he collapsed to the floor in slow motion, sprawling there while the Jo boys worked over Jensen’s convulsing body. Jared’s hands compulsively smoothed the wrapper - checked the contents - over and over and over.

It was the least he could do.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There is talk of and a desire for death/suicide in this chapter.
> 
> Also - thank you so much, my faithful readers, for sticking with my slow progress. :)

_When the green field comes off like a lid_  
 _Revealing what was much better hid:_  
 _Unpleasant._ \- W.H. Auden, ‘The Two’

 

_There was heat where heat should never be, and Jensen hugged his arms around his ribs, crouched down in an alcove that was supposed to hold an emergency evac suit. The suit was gone, though, and whatever had caused the **Glorianna** to buck and shudder like a wrestler breaking a hold was still happening. Metal groaned and pinged all around, the lights flickering and finally going out, emergency spots coming on after a long, breathless moment of utter, abyssal black. Warning klaxons were wailing, deafening, only adding to the overall terror._

_Jensen whimpered, curling down tighter, his small-for-seven-years body making itself as little - as compact - as possible as he listened to distant shouting, to **screams**. He’d been on his way to the game room, to play Star Chaser with- Jensen’s breath caught in horror and he forced himself up, out of his huddle, out of the alcove. He had to get there, had to! What if the game room was damaged, what if there were **people**...?_

_He staggered down one corridor and then the next, stopped for a breathless moment in front of the lift doors, but then darted aside to the emergency tube, the laddered climb that would take him up the two levels he needed to go. Gravity behaved strangely, sometimes almost dragging him off the hand-holds, sometimes almost floating him up. He took advantage, pushing fast, scrambling and kicking and then **running** , as fast as he could. He skidded around a corner and fell flat on his ass before rapidly backpedalling. The corridor was a jumble of broken light panels and debris, ceiling tiles and a jagged hole where sparking circuitry and wires had spilled out. Jensen gaped at the destruction as he scrambled to his feet, coughing in the eddies of acrid smoke. _

_Just there, just past, was the game room, and he had to, he **had** to…. Jensen crept forward, placing his feet just so, aware now of a curious noise, a sort of hissing, rushing noise that he’d never heard before. And heat, too much of it - it should **never** be this hot, they’d never get things cooled down, panels would warp, electronics would fry. The klaxon was muted here, half the speakers gone, the others sounding garbled, the sound coming out tinny and flat._

_Jensen heard a noise, choked and awful, and he flung himself forward the last few feet to hang in the doorway of the game room. Whatever had happened was worse here, there was **fire** , open flame, and he stared in horror. A fire extinguisher was lying half-buried beneath a shattered game console, and Jensen stepped towards it, into the room, blinking against the smoke and coughing, leaning and reaching and **screaming** , nearly hysterical._

_When something wet and rough clamped around his shin, he kicked out, hard, as he twisted and fell back, only then looking to see just what it was. Something black and red, oozing and cracked, some thing - some **one**. A hand spasmed weakly on the half-melted carpet, and Jensen was panting now, panting and coughing, his eyes watering, up on his knees and trying to see…. He saw._

_A hand. An arm. A twisted mess of burnt wires and burnt coverall, burnt skin sloughing away from a shoulder, a neck, more wire…._

_“Jeeeen...sss… Jeen…”_

_The **face** was barely recognizable, soot and wire and raggedly scorched hair, a cut that was sheeting blood down a high cheekbone, one eye half-shut, swollen, but Jensen knew._

_“ **Sam!** Sam, oh no, Sam-”_

_“Hhh….” Sam mumbled, his burnt hand digging aimlessly at the floor, his gaze barely focused. His clothes were scorched, hanging raggedly off most of him, his **skin** was, and he was half-buried in the rubble of a collapsed wall, twisted up in wire and insulation, and there was fire, more fire, coming down from the ceiling, something burning through._

_Jensen crouched over Sam, hands hovering but not daring to touch, no, he couldn’t, he would hurt Sam, to touch, he needed... someone, medico, **doctor** , he needed-_

_“Juh-Jenssen...haa..lp, haa...muh..muh….” Sam’s lips were black and red, blood and char, his eyelashes were gone, and his eyebrows. But it was him, it was Sam, one of the Olders. Jensen’s especial friend, his Star Chaser captain, he was **Jensen’s** , he was teaching Jensen about the babies, he was a womb-tech and he was going to show Jensen, going to show-_

_“Pleeessss….” Sam’s voice was an agonized rasp, raw and broken, and his useless hand was clawing at the carpet, at **Jensen** , skin falling away in blackened crusts, leaving streaks of scarlet on Jensen’s leg. Jensen jerked away, stood up and **backed** away, tears making him all but blind, the smoky air like acid in his throat, constricting his lungs. The fire was making a **noise** , a kind of hissing roar, and the heat was searing Jensen’s skin. He felt a sudden wash of coolness down his legs, bladder letting go. Oh, Sam would never let him live that down, so scared like a baby, wetting himself. Sam would never... **Sam**._

_“I’ll- I’ll get Turvey, I’ll get the doc! Sam, I-I’ll be back, I’ll be back!”_

_And Jensen turned and ran. Ran, hard as he could. Ran, from the lump of charred flesh and melted wire and oozing blood. **Ran** , stumbling and crying and coughing, seeking cooler air, light, **quiet**. Burrowed into the first place he found, a little store closet, all cool white linens and regular light, the klaxons muted there. He only came back to himself - to something like awareness - when the section seals went. Thundering clangs rang all through the ship as they sealed off the damaged parts, the parts on fire, venting it all, opening emergency hatches to let oxygen and smoke and flame plume out into space and die, a brief, bright burst of light in the forever black. _

_After, Jensen dreamed of Sam out there, flung into darkness, hurt and alone, drifting forever. Lost, abandoned. Jensen never said his name again._

 

Jensen surfaced like a swimmer held down too long, gasping for air, an ugly whoop through a throat already raw. There were lights - noise - a cacophony of beeps, voices shouting. And pain, pain twisting him like a rag, breaking his bones. He screamed and fought - bucking against restraints and hands and the weight of memory he couldn’t bear; sobbed in ugly, pathetic relief when something cold burned up his vein and he was sucked back down into nothing.

 

When he came up again, hours later - just skimming the surface - he could smell soap and coffee and that fuck-awful quick-seal stuff hospitals used to knit together little cuts and things. Familiar smells, familiar sounds. The steady metronome of the monitors, the faint whisper-hum of ventilation fans and, he could swear, the bone-deep, near-silent roar of the tremendous engines, the ship’s heartbeat echoing his own. Jensen sighed, not even bothering to open his eyes.

Ship, he was on the ship, he was in medical on the _Tiamet_. Fucking morphadine nightmares, that’s all - sometimes he reacted to that shit - rather have the stuff Jinx cooked up, or that tech down in the engine room, skinny woman with a bird tattoo across her shoulders, rainbow wings…. Jensen breathed in and out and in, and let himself drift back to sleep.

 

And woke screaming, retching, trying to get _away_ , but there were restraints on his arms and his legs, and this was not the _Tiamet_ , this was not _home_ , this was- this was- somewhere, fuck, he didn’t _know_ , he didn’t know where he was, he _hurt_ , everywhere, so fucking _bad_ , and why couldn’t they give him meds, why couldn’t they just knock him out already, again, please, _please_ -

Jensen twisted on the gurney, sweating and shaking, feeling as if his body were being wrung like a cloth, over and over. He was so hot he swore he could smell himself cooking, and the next moment he was shivering in an icy sweat. And they wouldn’t help, they wouldn’t let him go, they wouldn’t _fix_ it, and he wasn’t an Angel anymore, and he couldn’t fly anymore, and he was going to _die_ , he was going to die, he was so sick of waking up sick, waking up hurting, _waking up_.....

“Jensen, please don’t say that, please? You’re going to feel better, I promise you, you will.”

“L-l-lying, fucking….luh-lying, kill me, juss-usst kill muh-me, _do it_ , no-ot sscared, I’m not suh-suh...sscared.”

There was a hand on him, on his forearm, squeezing. Something damp touched his face, wiping delicately and leaving a cool trail, clearing his eyes and moistening his lips. Jensen squinted at whoever it was, head pounding in the glare of the lights, dazzled and aching.

“I’m not going to kill you,” they said. Someone said, Company accent overlaid with something else, some colonial world, a little burr and twang to the voice, soothing. The cloth wiped again, gently, and Jensen twitched aside from it.

“Let m-me go. Let m-me luh-loose. I need - nuh-need...I g-g-gotta...guh-go.”

“No. I’m sorry, but...you’re sick, Jensen,” the voice said, and Jensen jerked violently, his heart ratcheting up, his breath catching. “What- what’s wrong?”

“Who _are you_?,” Jensen growled, arching and twisting against the restraints. He ignored the pain, forcing his body to _move_ , forcing his eyes open, blinking over and over until his vision cleared a little bit, the light dimmer now (was it later? was it down time?), easier on his brain.

“I’m- You don’t know me. I’m Jared.” A shadow shifted - moved closer - and Jensen lifted his head, squinting hard. The figure swam into focus. Brown hair, dark eyes, station-pale skin. Worn collar of a sweater, smudges under the eyes like bruises. “You’re in- You’ve been sick. But you’re getting better, I swear, and you- you’re gonna feel okay real soon, so please, Jensen, _please_ stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

Jensen’s gaze wandered, down his own body. Bloody wrists, and bruises, one centered around an iv needle that was huge and purple-black and swollen, ugly. His arms were thin - thinner - and he could feel hair around his mouth, on his neck, _fuck_!

“How- how long have you… How luh-long have you k-kept me here? What the _f-fuck_ are you duh-doing? Tell me!” Jensen shouted, when the person - man - hesitated. And that made his throat hurt, lancing fire all along vocal cords that were still fucked up from too much screaming, too many days and nights, too many tubes down his throat so he could breathe, eat, wake up _again, again, again_.

“Jen- Jensen! Please, c’mon, stop, okay? Please stop!” The man was on his feet - tall, he was tall, looming over Jensen - and Jensen shut his mouth with a snap, cutting off the ugly, raw noise that was coming out of him, independent of his brain. 

“Let me _go_!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” The man leaned in a little, turning to look at something - monitor, tube, who knew - and the light slid over his face, his throat, and Jensen felt the air punch out of him. Felt his belly knot in terror and longing.

“Ooh...oh no, no, _please_ , no, I’m sorry, I _tried_ , I was scared, I was too - ss-suh-scared, Sam, _please_ don’t be muh-mad at me, don’t be mad at meee….” Jensen realized, dimly, horrified, that he was crying, and the man (Sam, it’s Sam, no, no, no) hushed him softly, long fingers lacing with Jensen’s and squeezing, the cloth wiping his face again, wiping the tears, pushing Jensen’s hair back.

“Who do you think I am? Jensen? Tell me, please, tell me. I’m _Jared_ , okay? I’m not- We never met before, okay? Please tell me...who Sam is.”

Jensen sobbed at the name, his whole body coiling up tight and then snapping rigid, straining up in a painful, impossible arc. He gritted his teeth, sharp jab of pain in his jaw, fists locked shut, nails digging in. He could feel the muscles in his forearm around the iv needle, the dull burn and the deeper, harder ache of the bruise there, and his head hurt so bad, so _bad_ , hammer-blows from the inside, cracking him open, and if he could just let it _out_ , let the pressure out, it would be better, it would _stop_ , he just had to-

Something gave way with a low tearing noise, and for a moment Jensen thought it was his arm, his ribs, but then his hand came up, clawing, the remains of the restraint shredding around his wrist. He doubled his fist up again and brought it down, _hard_ , on his face, temple - anywhere, anything - and (Sam) the man was shouting, and another voice and the machines were screaming, and Jensen was pretty sure he was screaming he just couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t wake up anymore, he just could not…wake up…anymore.

 

Jared staggered into the observation room once they’d finally got Jensen stable again - under again, restrained again. He had a split lip and maybe a black eye coming, and he was sick to his stomach, Jensen’s voice still ringing in his head. Jensen begging Jared to kill him, to let him die, that he was _sorry_... Fuck.

Jared stumbled into the toilet and turned the water on in the tiny sink - splashed his face two or three times with cold water and then just leaned there, shaking. He looked up, finally, to see eyes red from too-little sleep, a swelling lip and stubble, his hair hanging wet over his forehead, his whole face just...tired. God, he was tired. After a moment, he slurped up a handful of cold water, then shut off the tap and staggered into the observation room. Fuck, what had he gotten himself into? Jensen was….

Jensen was barely _there_ \- barely aware, down in the bottom of some horrible pit of memory and trauma that Jared couldn’t even begin to fathom. How in _hell_ was he going to help? Could he help at all? It seemed like his very presence put Jensen into a tailspin and what the fuck was _that_ all about?

Jared rubbed his hands over his face and winced, then dragged them back through his hair before sighing, staring up at the ceiling and gathering himself and every scrap of courage and energy he had left.

And then he sat up, and got a dataspot going, and started to pull everything the Devils had on the _Glorianna_ , on Jensen, on what had happened. They’d infiltrated Company databases and stolen Company secrets and wormed their way into the smallest, darkest, deepest-buried Company morgue-files. Whatever was there, in Jensen’s past - they had it in black and white, and Jared had to have it, too.

A half-hour later, he had one of the first-ever things. Vid from the _Sally Belle_ , when her crew had found the _Glorianna_. Suit-cam vid, it was flat and grainy, showing a ship’s lock and then an emergency access tube. The vid was shaky and whatever enhancement had been run on it had made it weird, the edges jumpy and pixelated, the colors - what little there were - bleached out and muddy. Jared skipped the vid forward in little jumps, not really knowing what he’d see. He lingered for a long moment in the room with the tiny skeletons, the curls of soot and fire-damage that licked around the walls. Then he skipped ahead again, swallowing, heart pounding.

Suddenly, the picture was jarred, jerking sideways, a garbled and tinny shouting coming from the suited figures. And then Jared saw them. Children - a dozen, maybe more - naked and filthy and somehow just not _right_. Too small, too _thin_ , moving in an odd, jerky way, as if their limbs weren’t quite connected. Howling, an unbelievably terrifying noise, guttural and raw, and Jared jerked upright in his chair when he recognized it. It was the same noise Jensen had been making in the corridor - the same noise as he’d battered himself bloody, his wild, animal gaze fixed on Jared’s face.

One kid stepped forward, away from the rest - a kid just as skinny and dirty, but with some kind of wire or tape wrapped around his arms, up across his shoulders and around his throat. A kid who _spoke_ \- or tried to - and Jared punched up the commentary, pushing the ear bead in a little more securely.

_”First contact with subject, Jensen AKLS927,”_ the voice said, emotionless, and Jared leaned forward, his breathing coming a little harder. The kid was gesturing, mouthing some word, distorted all out of sense. The vid froze for a moment, and a frame of the kid’s face suddenly magnified and then moved to the side as the vid resumed in the background, and Jared looked at the magnified, cleaned up image and saw...Jensen’s eyes. Those same green eyes, same long lashes. Saw a skeletal face and stained teeth and filthy hanks of matted hair that hung down from a shaved, nicked scalp. Saw madness, illness - death, arrested and altered and turned into the man who was lying unconscious in the next room. From a dying orphan to a lethal Angel - and his eyes were exactly the same.

Jared thought they had found survivors on a derelict ship. Kids and their guardians, eking out some kind of life, purposeful, if not perfect. Not that, not - He glanced at the screen again and saw the womb-tanks - the bodies - and that was it, that was fucking _enough_. His hand slapped down on the dataspot, ending the vid, and he resisted the urge to pick it up and hurl it across the room.

Jared pushed himself up and out of the chair and across the room. Without him realizing, the Jo boys were both there, Jo One on the cot, Jo Two in a chair, reading a dataspot. 

“I’m- I’m gonna go...I gotta walk, I gotta...just...do something.” Jo Two nodded, silent, and Jared stalked out of the room, turned deliberately from Jensen’s door and strode away, heading out - up - to Carousel, to lights and noise and color, to bodies and music and _noise_. To something - _anything_ \- that would distract him from the images playing and replaying behind his eyes. 

The corridors - the screaming - the boy and the _man_...full circle and full stop.


	9. Chapter 9

_And all should cry, Beware! Beware!_  
_His flashing eyes, his floating hair!_  
_Weave a circle round him thrice,_  
_And close your eyes with holy dread,_  
_For he on honey-dew hath fed,_  
_And drunk the milk of Paradise._ ‘Kubla Kahn’ - by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

“It’s been three weeks,” Jared said, and Doc just looked at him, her hair askew under a pair of safety goggles, her lab coat crumpled and three sizes too large. The scanner glasses caught the glare of her computer screens, blue-white rectangles that for a moment obscured her eyes, making her seem blind. 

“You guys said- You said you knew what was going on with him. You said you could fix it, that _he_ could fix…. That this was going to be our ticket out of the Company.”

Doc stared at him a moment longer and then sighed, her narrow shoulders slumping. “We can. _He_ can. And we will. It’s just...not that easy. It’s pretty damn _hard_ , really.”

Jared rubbed his hand back through his hair, huffing and Doc rolled her eyes. 

“Look, okay….” She sat up a little straighter on the stool she was perched on, her elbow knocking into a rack of tubes, making them chime faintly against each other. She grimaced and pushed them a little further away, out of the line of fire. “Right now, his ‘net is working, which it shouldn’t be. When they muster Angels out, they do a purge, and they inject this...kill virus. It turns off the ‘net. The net’s a living thing, it’s not a machine, it’s not circuity, it’s not even nanobots, or, it is, but...it’s _organic_ , and it grows. If the Company never made those kill-switches and checks and the virus, your ‘net would grow through your whole body. It would replace some things, it would just become...you.”

“Yeah, okay. So - you said his ‘net isn’t off. The virus or whatever didn’t work. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is, it’s damaged. Badly. It came back online when he did. He tried to kill himself when he was mustering out - twice, at least. And he almost managed it. They had to put him in a coma, blast him with immunosuppressors and generation bacteria and pretty much everything they could throw at him. Because his ‘net was down. It went...dormant. Suspended, kind of like him.”

Doc put a hand up to rub at her head and got her fingers tangled in the goggles. She slid them off and tossed them down, ran her fingers back through her hair, scrubbing hard, like she was trying to scrub her brain awake. “But then he’d come back - they’d wake him up - and his ‘net would wake up, too. And the kill-virus, it’s still in there. It’s damaged from all the resets, it got fragmented by the comas and the generation bacteria, but it’s still there, just...waiting. And every time his ‘net heals itself to a certain level of...of…. “ - Doc waved her hand around - “of _sentience_ , it runs head-on into the kill-virus, and it goes back down. That’s why Jensen keeps swinging between kind-of okay and really, really bad.”

“Okay, so, so what now? What are you-? How can you-?”

“ _Jared_ , “ Doc said, and Jared stopped, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “His ‘net’s too entwined in him to ever get it out, and it’s changed him. He’s _generating_ it now. The kill-virus is just too good - it targets exactly the right spots, every time, it’s _designed_ to do what it’s doing. So we have to kill all of it. And all the bits of the ‘net it’s infected. Everything.”

“But - you’ll kill _Jensen_.”

“No - no, we won’t. We can keep him alive, and he’ll _regenerate_ the net. We’ve seen it happen, in his blood, in tissue samples. It _works_. It’s just the virus is too good; it’s sneaky and it’s fast. So we have to make him sick.”

“He’s _already_ sick! He’s _dying_ from all-” Jared flung his hands up, furious. “From all this _crap_ you’re putting him through! Have you _looked_ at him lately? How is making him more sick going to help?”

“I know it seems crazy!” Doc snapped, and then sighed, rubbing at her eyes for a moment, under the scanner glasses. “ We basically have to take him back to zero. It’s called a cytokine storm. We flood his system with cytotoxic cells - machrophages - which will eat every bit of the kill-switch, and the infected ‘net - everything. Then we shut it down, and he regenerates the ‘net. Only this time, it doesn’t have any kill-switch in it; it doesn’t have _anything_ the company put in there to stop it. All that crap is gone and he’s got a clean ‘net. And once we’ve got a clean sample…. We can send it into anybody. They put _cancer_ in the ‘net, all kinds of shit, different stuff for different people, experimenting, just… _playing_.” Doc stopped again, a furious, disgusted scowl twisting her features. 

And Jared understood that, understood her fury at having this thing inside her that someone had deliberately crippled - poisoned. Just to keep it to themselves. Just for the _greed_ of it. 

“They’re trying to find...anything to keep it from doing what it’s capable of. Anything so they can hold all the cards. Angels nets are the closest to pure to begin with, they just build in addictions and trip wires and all that...conditioning shit. They’re getting close to their idea of perfect people. Perfect fucking _dolls_ they can program. They got so _close_ , with the Angels, the ArchAngels. We just need the pure stuff - the building blocks - and Jensen has them.”

Jared turned his shoulder to Doc, looking through the observation window at where Jensen lay, sleeping restlessly, so pale, and so thin, now - burned down to whipcord and bone. “I’m scared you’re going to kill him, Doc. He’s so- He’s so sick. And he doesn’t...he doesn’t even understand what’s going on, what you...what _we_ are doing. He doesn’t even know.” Jensen’s gaunt, pleading face, the pathetic little bundle of _junk_ he wouldn’t let out of his sight - it hurt every time Jared thought about. That that was all he had, all he was. Junkie dreams and junkie comfort, to hold back a darkness as wide and as deep as the abyssal eternity they flew through.

“I know,” Doc said, soft. But Jared could hear the core of steel in her voice, the resolution. “I don’t think he’s clearly understood...anything...since he was a kid, Jared. After what happened on the _Glorianna_... He never really recovered from that. He’s never really been given _choices_. Even now - the ‘net, what they did - he can’t escape it. If we let him go right now, he’d go back to the drugs, and he’d be dead in a month. Sooner. It takes so much out of him, to regenerate. He can’t survive it much longer.”

Jared wiped furiously at his eyes and looked away from Jensen, reaching for that same core that he knew he himself had; the core that had propelled him off distant Kin-Gin, and into the company. The drive to _live_ , above all else. “I know. I know. I just wish...it didn’t have to be so fucked up.”

“Hey, Jared.” Jo Two in the doorway, blinking in the light, back from some run or other, a smudge of what might be blood on his cheek. He held up a tiny titanium data tape, blue-silver glint. “Got something you might wanna see.”

They got it up and running on one of Doc’s scan processor computers, super-fast and elegant in its construction - way more computer than they needed, but nobody cared. It was the personnel file for the Glorianna, the one that listed the original crew. Jared had seen _that_ before - a string of names and identity numbers, dates and dry facts. But this - this had pictures, and _movies_ , goodbye messages, and the last words of the men and women who never expected to see their families or Old Earth again. Jo Two skipped through them, fingers swooping across the hologram keyboard, then stopped and hit ‘play’.

And Jared’s face...was on the screen. It was a younger Jared, one that had never been locked into an exoskeleton and fed through a tube, never felt his body losing cohesion and autonomy one nerve-cell at a time. He was a little thinner, hair a bit shorter, but it was the same grin, the same _eyes_ , and Jared felt his heart stutter and then _pound_ , fit to break his ribs. _Sam Winchester_ printed underneath, with birth date and rank and job - PseudoWomb technician - and a string of designations, of degrees and ranks earned. 

But Jared ignored it all to watch his doppelganger talk: saying hello, saying goodbye, laying out his hopes and dreams and fears in eight and a half hurried, stuttering minutes. He looked terrified, and elated, and sad, and Jared couldn’t breathe.

“It says he died. Whatever did the main damage to the ship, the fire? He was caught in it. He- He died from his burns the same day. It says his last words were about...Jensen,” Jo Two said, and Jared took in a sharp, aching breath.

“Whu-what?”

“Jensen found him, wounded. Burned. Scared the crap out of him. He ran away; he was fucking seven, hell, who wouldn’t? This- Sam, he told the attending to find Jensen and tell him...he- It’s on tape.” Jo Two tapped the screen and another window opened. That same face, but...not. Bandaged, swollen, blackness creeping from the edges of the burn wrap, a trach tube and wires and blood seeping through. One eye, no hair... Horrible. 

But he was _talking_ , halting and careful, his voice ruined by smoke and fire, slurred with drugs. 

_”Hey, Je-en.”_ A series of short, panting breaths, and someone hovering in the background, their voice concerned, urgent. _”I’sss’oo...kay. Jen. Not..maa-ad at...oo. You...take th’con f’me, kay? ‘Til I...guh...ge’ bet...ter….”_ A wash of lights, a scream of monitors, and Jo Two closed the window.

“Fuck, fuck, fucking _hell_ ,” Jared muttered, and stormed out.

And came back, half an hour later, because he had to be there for Jensen. Had to be.

 

The ‘storm’ was already on him, the fever making Jensen’s eyes glassy and his skin flushed, the color hectic against the grey pallor that had slowly taken over during the last three weeks. He blinked in confusion at the drinking wand Jared was holding, and then back up at Jared.

“I th-thought...thought you….”

“I’m right here, Jens...Jen. I’m here. You need to drink this, okay?” 

Jensen looked at the wand again and turned his head a little, disregarding it. His lips were dry and split, old blood and new staining the cracks in the skin. “I don’t...want it.”

“Damnit,” Jared muttered, and hooked it back into its clip on the tank a little too hard, his hand shaking. “Jensen-”

“I gotta...g-go,” Jensen muttered, moving in a strange, slow-motion way, as if he were swimming through syrup. “I need t-to...find Jin-Jinx. Mu..Morgan’ll...know, I need - need t-to-”

“They’re not here, Jensen. They’re - they’re on the ship. They’re gone.”

Jensen blinked again, slow, and then, to Jared’s horror, a tear slipped from the corner of his eye and trickled down, running away into the tangled hair at Jensen’s temple.

“But they...can’t leave m-me. They- I’m an _ArchANGEL_. I’m _Quemeul_.” Jensen sobbed in a breath, one thin hand coming up to wipe at his eyes. “They can’t just...leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Jared said, and Jensen put his arm over his face and turned away, tuning Jared out. After a little while, Jared got up and left, too keyed up to sit, too pissed, and too scared. He had to _move_ \- do something - so he went to get food for the Jo boys and Doc and himself; just walked the concourse for little while, trying to get his mind to stop racing and his muscles to unknot. Too much information. The tapes of Sam - his life and his dreams, his death - playing on a loop in his head, words almost two hundred years old; and all Doc’s new stuff, about the ‘net and the ‘storm’ and everything that could follow, everything they were hoping for. All of it riding on a drug-addicted, ex-felon, ex-ANGEL who was clinging to life and sanity by the thinnest of fraying threads.

He walked until his feet hurt and his legs felt like lead, until his head was pounding and his mouth was dry, food forgotten, just _movemovemove_ until he could stop thinking for a while. And then he headed back down.

When he got there, the room was a shambles, Jo One had a black eye, and Jensen was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again - my thanks for your patience. And my deepest gratitude to Darkhavens for her always-perfect beta skills.
> 
>  _shetani_ = A Swahili word used in various East African nations to refer to mostly malevolent native pre-Islamic spirits, _shetani_ (pl. _mashetani_ ), is a borrowing from the Arabic, _Shaitan ___, meaning _devil _, or, more specifically, _adversary_. The word is cognate with the English word _Satan_ which comes ultimately from the same Semitic root.__

  


_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:_  
_mors et fugacem persequitur virum_  
_nec parcit inbellis iuventae_  
_poplitibus timidove tergo._  
  
  
How sweet and honourable it is to die for one's country:  
Death pursues the man who flees,  
spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs  
Of battle-shy youths.

  


by the Roman poet Horace

 

 

Jensen couldn't think. Everything was so _bright_ , and so loud. Every instinct in him was screaming to run, to hide, to _go_. Burrow and delve and dive, disappear. He'd tried; he'd fought his way past two men who'd attempted to hold him. He'd found his coat and he had his things but...he was so _hot_. And his arm hurt. And his ribs, and his head, fuck, his _head_.... Every shift of his body, every impact of his feet on the ground made it ring and throb and whine in stuttering, white noise static, his vision occluding and clearing in flashes until he was reduced to crawling.

He'd gone the wrong way and reeled back in agony from lights and music and noise, noise, noise, before staggering for the shadows. He went further and deeper, and then had to stop and curl up in a niche to just _breathe_. Five minutes - ten - and he'd finally eased his aching arm out from under his coat, trying to understand the pain. There was tape on his arm, holding in place a needle attached to a length of clear tubing that dragged and caught. The tape was beyond him, his chewed-down nails scrabbling uselessly at it, so he finally left it alone, wrapping the tubing around his wrist, tucking and pulling so the needle didn't move, the tube didn't drag. Then he shoved his arm back into his coat sleeve and took stock. 

No weapons, no shoes, no clothes. A burn in his groin from the catheter he'd pulled out of his dick, a solid ache across his ribs, two taped fingers that throbbed in time with his heart. His gut hurt, too, like he was hungry, but the thought of food made his mouth flood, nausea hovering, and he was so _hot_. He was on fire, his lips burning, his eyes, his throat like wire, brittle and sharp, and everything _hurt_ , _everything_ hurt.

Jensen snapped upright from a slump, a moment of blank unconsciousness. He could hear...something; people, machinery, he didn't know, but it was too close and too loud and he had to go, had to move, he wasn't safe, here, wasn't safe….

He reached out for the 'net, trying to find Jinx, Five, anyone, but there was only numb silence, nothing at all. Whimpering, Jensen clawed himself upright, to knees and then feet, hunched over, gasping. He followed the wall as it went, further into shadow, to a door, all scarred paint and letters, the yellow and black diagonal stripes that meant selected access only. A fire door, with an easy push handle that moved under his weight and then he was through and into another hall, but this one was dim and quiet, marks on the wall from carts or dollies. Tech access, maintenence, something. Not for the public, so safer. 

He moved as quickly as he could, panting harshly, a reeling scurry that banged him into the wall, into door jambs, into the raised edge of section seals. _Ship or station, ship or station...station, station…._ Jensen leaned against a thick, ribbed bundle of conduit and pipes, thinking. Trying to think. His brain was muffled, his thoughts moving in slow, humming arcs, jumbled into nonsense, nearly intelligible. _Station! Think, think…._ Had to be Axis, had to be. He remembered Axis...didn't he? Construction and raw girders, the chill of the non-sun side, and Angels, Angels…. 

There was a noise - a groaning kind of boom, the air itself tearing - a mag-lift, dropping down the shaft, and Jensen pushed himself toward it, leaning and clutching and all but dragging himself along the wall, fighting for air. Black sparkles and white snapping in his visual field, little bursts that made him flinch, distracted.

The wire grating of the lift access was down, a yellow and black protective barrier, little lights winking. Jensen leaned there, feeling the air that wafted out, cool and scented with the smells of oil and grease, hot metal and warm plastics. A sudden up-rush warned him and he leaned back as another lift rocketed past, a little eddy of trash in its wake. This was what he needed. 

He ground the palms of his hands into his eyes and just _breathed_ for a moment. He could ride the mag-lift. He'd done it, he was sure he'd done it...sometime...somewhere…( _Jinx and Kane and Sinna, suit gauntlets locked into hand-holds, riding a runaway mag-lift, screaming with laughter, howling like banshees, the 'net pulsing with lovefamilyfamily, rush and roar and **alive alive**_....) 

Jensen shook his head and winced; found the edge of the control box and pried it up, little indent there for the tech guys, exposing wire and chips, blinking lights. He stared, unfocused, and then finally pulled a chip, touched a wire to the exposed socket, and the guard slid back. Somewhere, an alarm was sounding, but nowhere close. It would take...time. Enough time.

The air pulsed, another lift coming, this one dropping down, and Jensen watched it fall, then gritted his teeth and _leapt_. He fell with it, a moment of pure joy, weightless and flying. Then he slammed down onto the shell, scrabbling and clawing and sliding, catching a hand-grip just in time. He tucked his legs in close, away from the edge and grimly hung on.

Going down.

 

"Fucking _hell_ , what happened?" Jared yelled, and Jo One shot him a filthy look, a cold pack pressed to his face.

"What the fuck you _think_ happened? Fuckin' crazy asshole."

"He's _sick_ , it's not his fault," Jared snapped, and Jo One shoved Doc away and stood up, wincing. 

"I was talking about _you_. All'a you. You're fuckin' nuts. He's _never_ gonna be right in the head. All those Angels are crazies, fuckin' felons and rapists and murderers. They gotta psy-block half of 'em just so they can fuckin' eat and shit without takin' anybody out. What do you _think_ this guy is, fuckin' innocent?"

"Fuck you," Jared muttered, but Jo was right. ArchANGELS were 'recruited' - meaning, conscripted - from prisons all over the universe. Whatever had happened to Jensen as a kid, he'd gone on to break the law in a damn spectacular way. You didn't become an Angel for stealing a damn dataspot. "Just...tell me where he went."

"How the hell do I fuckin' know?" Jo One said, gesturing at his eye. He made a furious noise as Doc approached again, but this time sat back down, grudgingly letting her look him over. "Surprised the fucker can walk."

"He can walk," Jo Two said, coming in through the door. "Somebody tripped a safety alert on a mag-lift two sections over. Gotta be him. Nobody else is fuckin' crazy enough to do some dumb-ass shit like that."

"Both of you shut up," Doc said, and Jo Two came over to peer at his brother. "He's not in his right mind. He's literally _not in his right mind_ , don't you get it? Between all the company shit and what we did to him, if he comes out of this knowing his own name, we're gonna be lucky. I'm sorry, Jared," Doc added, straightening her shoulders.

"I didn't want to tell you, but there's a real chance he'll come out of this with permanent, profound brain damage. That's one thing the company _can't_ fix yet. They can rewire it, but they can't grow grey matter. Not fucking yet, not when it's been burned out." Doc held up a hand, forestalling Jared who could _feel_ himself bristling with fury.

"His best hope is here, where we can keep the damage to a minimum, control his temperature and keep him hydrated and stable. So instead of blowing up at me, you need to _find_ him."

" _Fuck! You!_ " Jared screamed at the ceiling, and Doc flinched. Jared knotted his fingers in his hair and _pulled_ , eyes shut, trying to get a full breath. His heart was pounding against his breastbone like a hammer, and he felt horribly, scarily fragile. Like the wrong move - the wrong word - would shatter him.

"Fuck you, fuck the Company, fuck the fucking Angels. How in hell am I supposed to find him on Axis? He could be anywhere."

"But he's _somewhere_ ," Jo Two said. "Start with where you found him the first time. Those fights. Somebody'll know."

" _I_ don't. I dunno how to find those fights; they move all the time and I'm not _here_ that much."

"I am, though." Jo Two patted his brother on the shoulder and stepped toward Jared. "I know the guy that runs 'em. And he owes me. So get your gear, whatever you need. Doc, fix him up; I gotta grab something." Jo Two looked up at Jared, corner of his mouth twisting up in a little grin. "We'll find him."

 

The guy Jo knew was a tall and skeletally thin man in a dull-green vest and dusty black trousers, ticking and flashing and chirping chronos laddered up his arms. They were distracting, and Jared had to jerk his gaze away from them again and again, try to focus on what Jo and Tick-Tock were saying.

But his brain kept fixating on the chronos, running in aimless little loops. Familiar pattern, this - his brain working overtime to keep him from thinking about things he didn't particularly want to think about. The man looked unhappy to be talking to Jo, to be standing in the light of the concourse. Runner of the dark ways, Tick-Tock was, and he must owe Jo an almighty favor, to make him be out and about with the day folk.

"You think you're going to catch that Angel, then?" Tick said, and Jo made a little gesture of impatience. "You think you'll _rescue_ one of them, make him whole?" Tick shook his head slowly, and the chronos looped around his neck and pinned on the chains that stitched his vest together swayed, chiming. "He no more has his wings. If he don't fly, he _die_ , _shetani_."

"He's not going to _die_ ," Jared snapped, and Tick snorted softly.

"Surely, he cannot live."

"Do you know where he is, or not?" Jo asked, his voice rough with irritation, and Tick sighed, glancing left and then right at the chronos, his long, thin fingers tapping along each face.

"He goes along that road between heaven and hell, _shetani_. The world road."

Jo nodded once, letting Tick-Tock go. The man touched his fingertips to his forehead, grave little dip of his chin, and then he was moving away, a broken clock-work stalk on legs like pipes.

"So?"

"He's down in the Axis Mundi," Jo said, and started walking, fast. 

"What the fuck does _that_ mean?"

"It means we're gonna have to be very, very careful." Jo sorted through a fan of cloned cards and slid one through a lock on a service door. It opened with a sigh, and they stepped out of the lights and motion of Carousel and into a dim corridor, the noise abruptly gone with the shutting of the door. The bare corridor had an access map on one wall, and Jo studied it for a long moment, and then started walking again, fast.

Jared strode after him, easily matching his stride. "So what's Axis Mundi?"

"It's the core. It's where Axis started. Then she grew - got bigger - and nobody wanted to be in so far, and so close to the bones of the place. So mostly it's powered down, just empty corridors and maintenance tunnels. It's the quickest access to the power station, but that's not where we're goin'. We're goin' to the very bottom of the slide, and, Jared-" Jo stopped, his fingers on the butt of the big, ugly blaster he had strapped to his thigh, concealed for the most part under a long-tailed coat. "You gotta do what I tell you, okay? It's- We're not welcome there, and we just gotta be...really careful." Jo's dark eyes were earnest - worried - and Jared felt a little chill shiver over him.

"Yeah, I can- I'll be careful. Just...tell me what to do."

 

Axis Mundi was dark, to Jared's eye, all shadows and deep wells and long stretches of nothing but blackness, lit here and there by loops of flex-lights, or power-down indicators over doorways. Here, the noise of the mag-lifts echoed, a distant howl, and pumps and filters and scrubbers made a white-noise of constant, low-level sound. But below that, somehow - wound up in that - was the vast, almost noiseless throb of the power source, the heart of Axis, her own sun in miniature, shedding power and heat that the armature was at pains to dissipate. 

The closer they got to the ultimate core - going inward, down to the bottom of the well - the warmer it got, until Jo and Jared both were sweating, panting. They passed through more temperate zones, into actual cold spots, and out again, and Jared started to feel...uneasy.

There was just enough background noise to mask more deliberate sounds, and he could swear he heard people talking, moving, maybe even shouting. He kept flinching, jerking quick looks back over his shoulder, and Jo finally rounded on him, his eyes wide, his hand coming up to pinch down hard on Jared's shoulder.

"You gotta calm the fuck down."

"Yeah, I...sorry, fuck, it's- it's just- I feel like...like…."

"I know, but it's not- It's nothing, okay? It's the power station - infrasonic. You can't really hear it; you feel it, and it makes you fucking paranoid. So just- just ignore it. We're okay."

"Fuck," Jared muttered, and wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt - shoved his hair back, looping it into a short tail with an elastic. "Okay. I'm okay."

"Okay." Jo took a deep breath and then pointed to a smear of phosphorescent paint along the corridor wall, down low. "We're gettin' into the territories. People _live_ here, and they do not want _us_ here. So don't fuckin' talk, and don't _do_ anything, and for fuck's sake, don't _look_ at anybody, okay? Curiosity is _not_ your friend."

"Okay," Jared said, and he took a few hard, deep breaths, settling himself before nodding to Jo. "I'm good."

"Okay. Here we go." Jo unsnapped the safety strap on the blaster, settled his hand on the butt and started to walk. Fast.

Jared followed, seeing more of the paint - seeing other things. Alcoves with bundles of things inside; little makeshift camps, a couple with actual, open flame that made his heart kick in his chest, sick fear that he ruthlessly squashed down. And people. Not a lot, not crowds, but enough. People like Jensen, in layers and rags of clothing, hunched and unmoving, or warily turning. Watching.

Jared kept his gaze fixed firmly on Jo's shoulders and just moved, and after a few more turns - after a slide down a set of stairs so steep they may as well have been a ladder - they started to hear something. A voice was shouting - _howling_ \- incomprehensible, and Jo's steps faltered for a moment, little catch-step. But he squared his shoulders and moved on, and the noise got louder, closer. 

_Jensen_ , Jared thought, because it was. His voice, hoarse and ragged, screaming, sobbing - wailing. Animal noises that made the vid from the _Glorianna_ flicker in Jared's brain, and he swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, forcing himself to shut that down. 

They came to a makeshift barrier of plastic sheeting and scavenged wire, and pushed through. On the other side was a long corridor with several spots of dim, greenish light at random intervals, but mostly it was just darkness. Darkness and shadows, but the shadows _moved_ , and Jo froze, stopping so suddenly that Jared actually ran right into him.

" _Shit_!"

"Shut. Up," Jo said, and Jared froze, as well. They watched a shadow detach itself and move toward them in a slow, hitching kind of way; a sort of stop-start-stop motion that made the figure seem to flicker, in the uncertain light, and which made the feeling of intense unease that was welling in Jared ratchet sharply upward. Another shadow emerged from what Jared hoped was a doorway or alcove - not just the darkness, for fuck's sake - and then a third. 

Moving slowly but deliberately, Jared crouched, slow as slow; reached down and slid the Cobra out of its sheath on his calf, clutching it tight in his fist. He started violently when a sudden, hideous noise screamed out of the corridor behind him. Metal on metal, it was a sliding, scraping squeal of sound, and Jo was shaking, just a little, the blaster half out of its holster and his eyes huge.

Jensen's voice - and it was so raw and broken it made Jared's own throat ache in sympathy - went on and on, howling and then cursing and then moaning, and Jared's belly was trembling, down inside - tremors that were rippling out through his thighs and his chest and his arms, making his lungs hitch.

"We gotta help him," Jared whispered, and Jo hissed.

"Shut up, shut _up_!"

"We can't j-just ss-tand here, we c-can't, we gotta he-help him-" Jared flinched again, hard, as a pump whirred to life somewhere near his head, and all three figures seemed to _leap_ forward with more of that metal-on-metal squeal. Something gleamed at the ends of their fingers; long slivers of metal, like nails or knives, scraping over the leperous, paint-flaked wall of the corridor.

"We're gonna fucking die if we do anything stupid- _Jared_ \- Fucking _shit_!"

Jared gulped air and pushed past Jo, shoving the Cobra into a pocket and holding his hands up, arms wide, so freaked out he didn't _care_ , he just couldn't stand that noise anymore. Couldn't take hearing Jensen scream.

"Hey! Hey, I'm s-sorry we came here, in your territory." The figures jerked - froze - and then moved again, a little quicker. Closer. Jared could make out eyes, now, between the swathings of cloth. Feral eyes. "We didn't ask first, and I'm sorry. But- b-but we came for my friend. For- for Jensen. You can _hear_ him, right? He's- he's really sick. He might- he m-might die if we don't h-help him. Please, we just want to help him. He's my...he's...we're _Glorianna_. We both- c-came from there. He _lived_ there, and he n-needs help."

There was a noise behind him, and Jared half-turned to see Jo standing stock-still, hands out, a - man? - standing behind him, one hand on Jo's arm. The other curled around his throat, ragged metal tines instead of fingers, some kind of homemade prosthetic thing that looked sharp enough to cut, and nasty enough to kill with infection, all in one stroke. 

"Please-" Jared said again, taking one long step backward intothe corridor wall, his shoulders touching the rough surface that was chilled here, a random cold spot that made him catch his breath. "He's...he's an Angel, you know? And they- they mustered him out. He'll die, and we- We can help him."

The three figures coming up the corridor kept coming, still moving in that odd, hitching way that made Jared - infrasonic paranoia and all - want to scream. As they swayed to a halt, Jensen's voice tapered off to some kind of hoarse, droning noise, either one or two words repeated over and over or just...noise. Like he'd exhausted himself, brain and body, and could only make this horrible, painful _groan_ now.

" _Diaboli_ ," one of them said - a woman's voice - and Jo made a sort of wheezing noise of assent, not moving. "Cut," the woman added, off-hand, and Jared jerked in horror, spinning to watch Jo - be let go. The figure behind him drew away, metal finger-knife things chiming faintly against each other, and Jo let out shaky curse.

"Fuck, Jo-"

"You're _Glorianna_?" the woman said, and Jared snapped his mouth shut and nodded hard. "Company brat," she said, looking him up and down, and Jared nodded again.

"Won a lottery on Kin-Gin, they gave me the ANGEL system to fix me. Grimes."

The figure next to the woman made an indrawn noise of sympathy, and murmured something. "Ah," the woman said. "That was nasty. Company did that. Changed the reports, deleted the red flags."

"Yeah, I- How did...how did you know?" Jared asked, and the woman tugged at the cloth around her face, pulling it down to show Jared a thin, slightly warped visage, one eye wandering in its socket. The hands that unwound the cloth shook, fumbling with clumsy slowness. 

"Was on the terraforming team. Thought I'd get me a house, got this instead. Wasn't bad enough to win a Company spot, though."

"I'm- I'm sorry. Fuck, I-"

The woman shrugged, shoulders uneven beneath her layers of clothing. "Not your fault. You had it bad, to get a spot. They wanted the ones who'd rather be dead than say no." She looked over at Jo, then back at Jared, assessing. "You really gonna fix Quemeul? The angel," she said, at Jared's puzzled look.

"Yeah, we are. We can. He's...he's special, okay? He's....he might be the cure for what the Company did to the ANGEL system," Jared said, and Jo made a strangled sort of noise, glaring at Jared. Jared ignored him. "His 'net, it's pure. We can break the Company's back with this. With him. But he's gotta live, and he can't do that down here. Please, please let us take him back."

The three figures shuffled together, talking too low and fast and coded for Jared to understand. Next to him, Jo was muttering under his breath, sounding furious, but Jared didn't care. He'd do anything, right now - say anything - to get Jensen out of there. There was no love lost on the Company down here, anyway.

The woman shuffled forward a few steps, and reached up to touch Jared's cheek. Her hand was icy-cold, smelling of machine oil and sweat and something faintly sweet, like soap. She patted his cheek gently, the little tremors running through her making Jared shiver. Sense-memory, superstitious aversion - he hated it and understood it, at the same time.

"We know you. _Diaboli_. We know. Don't think we can't find you, if we need to." She looked over at Jo and nodded, then, shuffling back. "Go and get him. He's hurt."

"Thank you," Jared breathed, and started walking, but quickly broke into a trot and then a run, uncaring. He could hear Jo behind him, the blaster rattling and Jo's muttering getting a little louder, but Jared ignored him and sprinted down the corridor, skidding around the corner at the end into a wide spot under a heat exchanger. The whole wall was covered in dense, cramped symbols and words and pictures, with a safety light shedding an unhappy yellow-green light on the scene.

Jensen was huddled in what looked like a nest of recycling, wrapped up in a silvery medical blanket, blood-streaked face bent down over bloodied hands. He was mumbling now, his voice nearly gone, and as Jared watched, his whole body stiffened into something that could be a seizure, could be just an all-over cramp of muscles. Fever and ague, Mama Signey would say, chills that would grip Jared's body and twist it like a dishrag, shaking the whole bed. 

Jared went cautiously closer; crouched down, right at the edge of the raised platform Jensen was on, hoping like hell not to startle him too badly. 

"Jensen?"

"Mmm…?" Jensen looked up slowly, his head angled oddly and his whole body shaking, shaking. His gaze was glassy and unfocused, but after a moment he blinked, rubbing the back of one hand over his eyes. "Ss...Sam. I thought you died."

"I- he…." Jared grimaced; stopped for a moment and thought. "I'm sorry, Jensen. I'm Jared. Sam... _did_ die. A long time ago. On the _Glorianna_. You remember? The fire?"

Jensen blinked once - twice - slowly and unevenly, and then his face twisted, crumpling. "I...remember. There was a...'namoly. The ship...went in and we...we got hurt, she got...hurt. Then the f-fire. And they...died, the Doc and...Ssam and...they _died_." Jensen curled his arms around his ribs under the blanket, hunching and rocking, just a little, as another bout of shaking consumed him, the muscles in his forearms and neck going rigid, his teeth chattering. 

"Jensen, you need to be in the- back in the med lab. You're sick."

" _They_...they were- I knew about the...babies. Sam shh-showed me. But I couldn't make it… _ss-stop_ , they wouldn't...stop, and they cried and they...cried and we...nothing made them _stop_ and they were- There wasn't any...food and I ff-or...got. I… _I_ was...not...not...and they just...kept borning, they...wouldn't...ss-top… _Sam_!" Jensen's hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Jared's jacket, twisting and pulling him closer. He stank of sweat and blood, and something else, some chemical underlay, the cytokine storm, poisonous medicine making his system go rapidly - lethally - haywire.

"Jensen, what-?"

"Sam. I'm ss-sorry I ran away."

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ , Jared thought, and reached up to very carefully pat Jensen's hand. "It's okay. I know you didn't mean to. It was- was really scary, and you were just...little. It's okay."

"Okay?" Jensen said, and Jared nodded. Jensen blinked again, slumping a little, and glanced vaguely up and around, focused on Jo for a moment, and then back down, at Jared. "Okay. Okay. I killed those people. I couldn't help it. They were...bein' really...really loud and it ss-scared me and I _tried_ , but it...they didn't...stop. So I killed...them. But they let me...they still let me...fly. Sam-" Jensen smiled, and for a moment it was the sweetest, brightest smile Jared had ever seen. 

"Sam, they let me _fly_. _Dul-chay et decorum est_. That’s what Kane said. _It is sweet…_ sweet…." Jensen's head dropped, and he was still for a moment, and then the shaking started again, harder than before, and his hand twisted tighter in Jared's shirt. "H-help me. Plee...ase help...me…."

"Yeah,, fuck, I can- We can help, I got you, we'll help-" Jared got up, crowding close to Jensen and getting an arm around him; looked up to see Jo coming close and doing the same, on the other side, both of them lifting Jensen up and out of the nest. His little bundle of junk tumbled down off his unfolding legs and Jared snatched it up and held on, got a shoulder under Jensen's, and then Jo was lifting from his side and together they dragged Jensen upright. He was shaking harder now, hard enough to chatter his teeth, his muscles like rock under Jared's hands, and Jo tugged away in the opposite direction they'd come in.

"Service lift down here, we can use that, take us right up to Carousel. I'll have Jo with a gurney-"

"Okay, let's go, let's go," Jared said, and they staggered off down the corridor, all but dragging Jensen between them. The others - shadows - followed until they didn't, and by the time they reached the service lift, the three of them were alone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ' _Tudo bem?_ \- Everything well?  
>  ' _Tudo bom._ \- Everything good.  
>  ' _Chuchu_ ' - Sweetie  
> ' _Legal_ ' - Cool  
> (Brazilian Portuguese)

_Marvellous happy it was to be_  
_Alone, and yet not solitary,_  
_O out of terror and dark, to come_  
_In sight of home._

Walter de la Mare - _The Pilgrim_

 

Day seventeen, he came in off his shift on auto, tired, brain buzzing. He showered and changed in the prep room, chatter of the rest of his shift washing around him. He was just...drifting, and startled hard, banging his shoulder into his locker when Paloma goosed him.

" _Fuck!_ "

"'Scuse, 'scuse, _tudo bem_?" Paloma said, hands up, grin fading off her dark-skinned face.

"Fuck. Yeah, sorry, _tudo bom_. Just-" Jared gestured at his head, willing his racing heart to slow down. "Got a lot on my mind."

“Okay, _chuchu. Legal_ , huh?"

"Yeah, _legal_ ," Jared said, giving a weak grin as he let Paloma pat his shoulder. She ducked off down the lockers with her partner, murmuring something too fast for Jared to understand. Skimmers were a pretty handsy bunch, and mostly Jared didn't mind but today….

Today he was just _spacey_ , itchy under his skin, and he had no idea why. He finished getting his boots on, then sweater and jacket and scarf, because the skimmers held the heat and the prep rooms were all kept sauna-warm. Walking out into the gangway that connected the skimmer dock and prep blister to the main core of Axis was like walking into a freezer, and it took a while to acclimate.

Jared got his locker shut and checked he had his dataspot and ID and debit card before striding out, into cold-metal smell and that particular stink you got from chemical cleaners, walking fast and outpacing his shift, just wanting to _move_. Maybe he’d go up to Carousel and get some food; maybe hit the gym on forty, work off some nerves. In the mag-lift to the core, he turned his dataspot on, nerves and habit, and almost fumbled it when the tell-tale lit, flashing 'urgent' at him.

He thumbed the little glowing tab and rapidly scanned the terse message that popped up from Doc. _'Awake. Wanting to talk. Buzz it._ '

"Oh...fuck, fucking-" The middling-older guy in Axis tan - money-pusher, credit-checker, just high enough to consider Jared _low_ \- gave him a pursed-mouth look of distaste. Jared hit the button for the next level, got out and speed-walked to the first access he saw, using the card Raleigh had got him. Through the door and into a service corridor, and then into a service mag-lift. Card, access code, and the mag-lift was moving, _priority_ designation. Jared was causing delays and stops all along his route, and he didn't care. 

Jensen was awake.

 

Jared skidded to a stop outside the observation room, panting a little. He was warm, finally, and he unzipped his jacket and peeled it off as he slowly walked forward, watching Jensen through the window. Doc was in there, checking the machines, some kind of transcriber in her hand. Jensen was watching her, doing a slow, slow blink every now and again. He looked utterly exhausted, his eyes sunk into their sockets and too many bones showing, tendons stark in the backs of his hands.

But there was the faintest blush of color in his cheeks, and his gaze seemed - clear. Clearer. Jo Two looked up from some kind of broth he was slurping up, and gestured with a pair of chopsticks, noodles dripping.

“Wan’s tal t’ou,” Jo Two said, spitting bits of something green, and Jared made a face. Jo Two made a face back and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. A noodle slipped out of the chopstick and he managed to catch it in the bowl with only minimal splashing. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Um. Is that- Is it safe? For him!” Jared adds, off Jo Two’s look.

“Doc said it was okay. Just go, already.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay.” Jared stripped the scarf off and tossed it with his jacket over the back of a chair. He ran his hands back nervously through his still-damp hair and then took a long breath and strode out of the observation room, and into Jensen’s room.

Doc noticed him first, giving Jared a little smile and nod, tapping her stylus on the transcriber, little flurry of soft clicks and almost-musical chimes. “Hey, there you are.”

“Just got off-shift.” Jared stopped a few paces from the foot of the gurney, pushing at his hair again, jerking his sweater down a little, fiddling with the cuffs. Doc rolled her eyes and went back to the machines, touching the display on a last one before making a note and then stepping away. 

“Jensen, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“‘Kay,” Jensen said, and his voice was hoarse and sleepy-slow. Doc patted lightly at the fold of thin blanket over Jensen’s ribs and then walked out, shooting Jared a hard look. Jared stared after her for a moment, baffled, but Jensen made a small noise and his gaze snapped back to that thin, pale face.

“Sore,” Jensen said, pushing weakly at the surface under him. He was still suspended, and the air-cushion immediately adjusted, cradling his body in a way that he obviously didn’t like. Jared swallowed and moved up close, toward the head of the gurney. 

“What- Do you want to sit up more? Or-?”

“Yeah,” Jensen said, and Jared found the controls for the gurney, pressed the button and watched as the upper half slowly began to incline upward. It got to about twenty degrees off the horizontal and Jensen made a pained sort of wheeze. Jared stopped it, lowered it a fraction, and Jensen nodded.

“Okay. Doc said...you wanted to talk to me?”

“Mmm.” Jensen’s eyes were half-shut, one hand restlessly smoothing over and over the blanket edge, the other all but immobilized, pressure cuff and IV and pulse-ox and all. “I...remember. Kind of. The...after the fight. You, and...getting me here. H-helping me. I-” Jensen licked his lips and Jared reached for the drinking wand, holding it out to him tentatively. Jensen took a few small, measured sips, sighing when Jared slid it away, as if that minimal bit of conversation - action - had worn him right down. 

“I know...you’re not...him. S-sorry.”

“No, hey, that’s - that’s fine. I know...I look like...him. We’re - genebrothers.”

“Yeah?” Jensen said, and Jared nodded, tried on a little smile. 

“Yeah. Surprised me, too.”

They were silent for a moment, Jensen’s eyes going closed like he had no real control over it, his hand still moving a little on the blanket. He looked cold, and Jared looked at the air-bed controls, nudging the heat up a few degrees.

“Still dunno...why you...helped. Any’ve...you.” His voice blurred a little, slipping out of its Company nothing-accent into something else. ANGEL, maybe, barrack’s talk. Something older, possibly. “You still...got m’stuff?”

“Huh?” Jared stared for a moment, derailed, and then blinked. “ _Oh_! Oh, yeah, it’s- Here.” There was a rolling cabinet pushed off to one side, full of random supplies. Down in the bottom drawer was Jensen’s coat and scarf, clean now, and the little package of stuff Jared had salvaged. He got it out, trying to smooth the wrapper, and then reached over and tucked it into Jensen’s hand. Jensen looked down at it, blinking slowly, and then his shoulders seemed to slump just a little.

“I...lost Sam. An’ then...my s-set, I was th’only one...left after the first...year. An’ then...th’crew. They died, tryin’ to...fix things, tryin’....’ Jensen coughed softly, wincing. “Just th’ little ones...all was...left. And babies, sso maaan...ny babies….”

Jensen blinked up at Jared, seemingly lost. Jared didn’t know what to say - to do - terrified the wrong thing would tip Jensen over some invisible edge, down into some hole in his mind. “Lost _me_. They got it back - lot of me back...but I killed...those boys. Shouldn’a...brought so much back, I ‘membered how….”

Jensen’s fingers crumpled the wrapper a little, brief tremor. “Why’d you...save me? Just gonna...lose somethin’ else. Lost the ‘net. My Angels’re...all gone. Like a...hole. Like...empty. What’my...there’s nuthin’...left of me. Why’d you want me?”

“Jensen,” Jared breathed, and his heart was pounding in his chest. He had no idea what the fuck to do. He stared helplessly at Jensen, and Jensen stared back, tears welling and slipping away from the corners of his eyes, down into the lank hair at his temples, so long unwashed, untended. His tattoos looked...pale - almost faded - the strange tracery of colored lines that ringed his fingers and twisted around his arms, shoulders and throat so light, like the tracery of the ‘net had faded. He looked like a washed-out copy of himself, even with the frail color in his face, and Jared’s heart just _hurt_ , thumping an uneven rhythm in his chest.

“Jensen...fuck. I want - want to show you something. Okay? Just...here. Wanna show you something.” Jensen made a small noise of protest, weak huff. 

“Sso...tired righ’ now,” Jensen said, and Jared felt a twist of guilt but, fuck, this was important. This was...was everything. Jared worked his dataspot out of his pocket and got it on. He paged his way down through layers of random junk, game apps, encryption programs and security systems, down to his private files, the stuff he rarely looked at, but couldn’t bear to delete.

The pictures of his moms. The farm on Kin-Gin. _Himself_ , at age one and three and five and six, ten and fourteen and sixteen. And the vid. Induction tape of himself, down on Salome. Right before they’d given him the first shot, implanted the building blocks of the ‘net into him. Grafted the port into his spine. He opened the vid and leaned gingerly on the gurney, angling the screen so Jensen could see.

Jensen glanced over at him and then back at the dataspot, and Jared tapped ‘start’.

Nothing, then text - his name, his age, his planet of birth. His disease. Then the interviewer, giving a few more details. Height and weight and general health and finally...Jared. Thin as a rail, pale as water. Propped up in the ‘skele, dull grey glassine padded here and there with grimy medical tape and wads of cellulose fiber. That Jared - seventeen, desperate, an orphan, though he didn’t yet know it - was smiling crookedly, telling the interviewer things about Kin-Gin, about his family, in that weirdly precise chip-voice, subvocal activation to circumvent a tongue and lips that couldn’t form most words, couldn’t make sounds that weren’t garbled mutterings. He had so much hope and so much love in his eyes that Jared had to bite down hard on his lip and turn his head away.

“This’s...you,” Jensen said, and Jared took in a ragged breath and turned back to Jensen.

“Yeah. I was seventeen. I had - have - something called Grimes Palsy. Had it pretty bad. Company held a lottery - lifted us off, took us out to Solome. Gave us the ‘net,” Jared said, and Jensen took in a sharp, hard breath.

“But they...sabotage it. You know that, right? Gotta get your medpacks, gotta get your test, gotta get your physios. Gotta do what the Company says or they take it all back. Call in all those loans, want that bill paid.”

On the screen, then-Jared was being carefully helped out of the ‘skele. Was held up by a white-coated tech, stripped down to underwear, and Jensen made another small noise. Then-Jared had slick, flushed sores where the ‘skele rubbed him raw; had limbs that were twisting out of true as tendons shortened and constant muscle spasms deformed weakened bones. Then-Jared shook with a constant, body-wide tremor, sometimes so hard he hurt himself, and his head wobbled weakly on a neck that couldn’t support it. He said his name - tried - mouth slurring, spit stringing away from his lip without the ‘skele syphoning it away. He’d choke on it, if he was laid down. 

The vid froze on then-Jared and his crooked smile and his wandering eye and his crottled, useless body, and Jared shut the dataspot off. “That’s Grimes. And I still have it. And if- if the Company wanted to, I’d be back...back to that in a year, Jensen. Less. We all would. If my ‘net stopped, if they- if they killed it.”

Jensen just stared at him, breathing a little harder - faster - mouth pulled down in a thin, unhappy line. “Ssorry ‘bout that. Sorry. But- how is… _I_ can’...can’ help you.” Jensen just looked so _tired_ , and Jared was really sorry but damn, he had to know, he had to _see_.

“You can, though, Jensen. You really can. God, it’s...amazing, it’s fucking unbelievable, almost but…. You’re going to set us free from the Company, Jensen. You’re going to set us all free.”

Jensen stared at him, confusion and what looked like maybe the beginnings of a bit of a mental freak-out in his expression, and Jared stared back, hoping he hadn’t...fuck, hadn’t totally just fucked things up. They both looked up in sheer, panicked relief as Doc breezed in, twirling one of her suckers in her mouth.

“Okay, Jared, how about you let me do this, huh? You’re freakin’ him out.” Doc leaned against the foot of the gurney, and the smile on her narrow, tattooed face was kind. “It’s all true, though, Jensen. You really are going to save us all. Just like the ANGELs always do.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings, just a thank you to my dearest beta, Darkhavens, for coming through every. Single. Time. :)
> 
> This chapter has been edited (June 2015) to correct a continuity error.

_‘The Self is Peace; that Self am I._  
_The Self is Strength; that Self am I.’_  
_What needs this trembling strife_  
_With phantom threats of Form and Time and Space?_  
_Could once my Life_  
_Be shorn of their illusion, and efface_  
_From its clear heaven that stormful imagery,_  
_My Self were seen_  
_An Essence free, unchanging, strong, serene._ \- _A Meditation_ , by Paul Hookham

 

Jensen wasn't sure - he really wasn't sure - he believed what they'd told him. It all sounded pretty damn strange, and what ArchANGEL ever survived mustering out? What Angel survived being alone? Because he _was_ alone, despite Sa- Jared, and the Doc, and all the others. Every time he tried to reach out - feel the space, check his safety, be certain of his six - he was met with blankness, just the numb buzz of dead connections that had once linked him to Jinx and Sinna and Kane. 

It was like constantly reaching with a hand that wasn't there, and it made Jensen nervous and snappish and _mean_. Which he was sorry about, every time, but fuck… He couldn't help it, and he _was_ sorry, but Jared had to quit expecting him to be…okay.

Jensen wasn't _okay_. He wasn't actually sure if he'd _ever_ been okay. Maybe once, for a little while. Maybe on the _Glorianna_ , with his set, and Sam, and the 'ponics garden blooming and things a little tight but nothing _bad_. The hope, that they'd come to their destination, or that someone would catch up with them, was all that was keeping them functioning. That FTL, or something like it, having maybe been discovered in the time the _Glorianna_ was in transit, they could be rescued - reconnected. Someday.

Thing was, it _had_ , and someone had, but not until it was far, far too late. Too late for Sam, and too late for the babies, and too late for Jensen, too. So he sat on the bed and did the little exercises with the resistance bands, until his muscles were screaming and his vision blurring. Ate what Doc gave him, never happier in his _life_ than when, a week after he woke up, she took the tube out of his belly. 

Two weeks after that, he was out of the bed, more resistance stuff, but walking, too. Trips around and around the room, then down the hall, shuffling in the weird hospital slipper things they gave him. Chilly in the soft pants and tee, he wanted his sweater. He asked Jared, and Jared told him it was gone - everything but his coat and scarf and his shinies, all gone - and Jensen...didn't hit. Didn't say anything, either, just shuffled away, back to bed, refusing to talk, or exercise, or eat for the rest of that day, and the next. He was pretty sure they were getting sick of him. Jensen was pretty sick of himself.

 

But you can't lay in bed forever, especially not with someone like Jared around. When Jared was off-shift, he'd come and pester Jensen endlessly, asking him what he'd done that day, was he hungry, he should drink, let's go for a walk. And when it wasn't Jared, it was one or the other of the Jo boys, or Doc. Endless questions Jensen couldn't or wouldn't answer, endless lists of things he needed to do, should do, _had_ to do to get better.

Jensen mostly went along with it, because at least exercising until he could barely walk meant he'd sleep, exhausted - sometimes even nightmare free.. Otherwise, sleep was hard to find, easy to lose, slipping past him like a shadow, no weight; insubstantial. Without the 'net - without his Angels - that's how Jensen felt, too, like he was tied to nothing and no one. Adrift.

But he got better. He got stronger. He gained back a good bit of the weight he'd lost, layered muscle over his bones, and could walk without staggering. Even the fine motor control that had allowed him to strip out components from his armor and put in new, or break down and rebuild any weapon in the armory - that came back. They'd said, on Reveille, it never would.

When he mentioned it to Doc, she got real excited; told him it was the ANGEL system coming back online, fixing damage and growing new nerves, new fibers, all over him. She showed him how it was advancing through his system, a fine tracery of blue lines on her machine, coiling down his spine, spreading out like cracks in glass through his brain. He could _feel_ it, making him stronger and faster, more like he had been.

Doc told him he'd never be _quite_ the same, because they didn't have access to all the stem-cell therapy, to grow the tough connective tissue he'd had, that made him able to use his armor without dislocating joints and ripping tendons free of their anchors. But he could beat Jared in a fight - though he wasn't much of a fighter - and the Jo boys themselves, and this kid they knew, a tough, rangy merc from one of the pirate crews, her hair clipped up in a topknot of thread-wound dreads, nearly every inch of her covered in precise, exacting lines and swirls of keloidal scars. She was military taught, lethally fast, and knew a few dirty tricks Jensen had never seen.

But he still took her down, third fight - fourth? - just too fast, too strong, too _good_ ; muscle memory he'd thought he'd lost, moving in a bubble of time where everything seemed a little slower, and he was just...so...fast.

That night, in the warm dimness of the room, Jensen closed his eyes and breathed very slow and tried - until his head pounded and his body ached from holding himself rigidly still - to find Kane. To find Jinx or Sinna, or _anyone_. But he couldn't, not a flicker. It took the gloss off everything else, made it all seem pretty damn pointless. _He_ was, because what the fuck was he doing? Ex ANGEL, ex prisoner, forever and always a criminal and a murderer. An orphan who had done...unspeakable things.

Jensen's brain shied away from _those_ memories, hazy and static-jumpy as they were. Blood and cold meat, decomposition reek; watching the light and life go out of a person (babies, not even really people yet, just empty blue-grey eyes and tiny, shaking fists…) with all the disinterested, absent attention he gave a dropped hair or a pared bit of fingernail. 

After that night, he spent more time in the gym, throwing himself into fight simulators and at heavy bags, the Jo boys - the walls. Shedding blood got to feeling like it was the only way he could ever shift some of that rot in him. He kind of wanted to shed it all, and knew that wasn't good, but he wasn't really sure what to do about it. Fuck knew, he didn't want to end up on some cocktail, zombied in a corner. He didn't tell about the nightmares, either, but that was just habit. His _Nephilim_ had known, but they had had them, too - memories of past lives and not-so-long-ago missions - and they'd comforted themselves with drugs and sex and simple touch. Here, at least, he was alone at night, and didn’t have to explain.

 

Seven weeks After, Doc said it was time. Time to test this thing. She had Jensen sitting with his shirt off on the edge of the bed, hunched over a pillow as she carefully, methodically, put a needle into his spine - sort of - so she could draw off fluid. To make the vaccine, she said, to make the serum to fight the Company virus, the Company cancers. 

Jared stood opposite him, looking horrified and like he might cry or something, and Jensen just watched him, puzzled. Doc was done after only a minute or two, smoothing something over the tiny hole she’d made, and Jared was sitting weakly down into a chair, shaking hands between his knees, face white as the sheets.

“I’m the one got stabbed,” Jensen said, and Jared laughed breathlessly.

“Sorry, I just...I can’t stand…. Sorry.”

“It’s over,” Jensen said, still not really _getting_ it, and Doc came around the end of the bed, little tube on a tray, gloves already off. She fished in a pocket and pulled out a sucker - bright red on a purple stick - and offered it to Jensen. 

“You did good,” she said. Jensen took the thing, unsure of it, and Doc got another one out, lurid orange on a green stick. “Here, Jared. Thanks for not puking.”

“Fuck you,” Jared muttered, but he snatched the candy, jerked the wrapper off and shoved it into his mouth. Jensen slowly did the same, and hastily yanked it out again when it _burned_. 

“Ow! What the hell?”

“Cinnamon,” Jared said, sliding his out of his mouth with a pop. Jensen hopped down off the bed and, in one motion, grabbed Jared’s candy and shoved his own at Jared’s mouth. Jared made an undignified squawking noise. Jared’s candy had a cool, sharp, tingly flavor. Jensen couldn’t name it, but he liked it.

“This is better. Thanks,” Jensen said, grinning around the stick at Jared, who stared at him for a long moment and then grinned back, taking the stick in his fingers and working the sucker around in his mouth. 

“Both of you, get the hell out of here, I got work to do,” Doc said, making shooing motions, and Jensen slid off the bed and got his shirt on, then a sweater Jared had found for him, and his coat. He looped the scarf around his throat but not his head, deliberate. Trying to be less of a freak, trying to just be _human_ again.

He had his palm-blade, though, and new gloves, with the fingers cut off, and boots with steel toes and soles that, again, Jared had got for him. To make him feel safe, to give him some armor.

“Don’t be bugging me anymore for at least ten hours,” Doc ordered, over her shoulder, on her way out. Heading to her lab, she said, to make the first dose of vaccine. The first trial.

Jared was going to be the test. Jensen…didn’t really like that. At all. But Jared was a stubborn bastard, he’d come to learn, and there wasn’t any point in arguing with him. So instead, they were going up, to Carousel. Jensen needed something done, and Jared was coming along for the ride.

 

The needles burned their way along Jensen’s shoulder, following the old lines, renewing them. Jensen sat stock-still in the chair, gaze fixed on Jared, who was twitching and sweating and looking pathetically uncomfortable. As if _he_ were the one in the chair, feeling the sting and the burn, the heat blooming in newly-pierced skin.

Jensen watched himself in the mirror opposite, over the curved shoulder and back of the artist. The man had a bioware spine and arm, the machine socketed into his hand, part of him, and it was the 'net all over again, it was a honing of abilities with an alien scaffold to support it, and it was fitting. How it should be, altered human to altered human.

Jensen watched the lines that knotted and twisted up from his fingers to his throat deepen and grow richer, blue and green, yellow and red, black and white. His first armor; his first weapon against others. It had made him _different_. It had made him stand out; made him the Leader, when others wouldn’t, or couldn’t. 

_Captain. Sam was dead, and he couldn’t be co-pilot anymore, he had to be Captain, **Star Chaser** Captain. He had to take care of them, had to make the decisions for the little ones. Jensen was the one who decided the sickest, weakest ones had to be sacrificed. Jensen picked which babies seemed strong enough to be taken from the incubators and nursed along on the emergency rations and whatever infant food hadn’t gone rancid. Jensen decided, when there was so little left that they were dying, two or three in a day, that there was meat to be had, and they would have it. Jensen decided…._

Jensen closed his eyes, willing away the images. He was decades older, but it seemed that he’d been on the _Glorianna_ just last month, last week. It seemed he’d never get that cold, poisoned reek out of his nostrils, off his skin. Never scour his soul clean enough to be free of it. Despite that, he had to have this. He had to be _himself_ ; had to be whole. Had to have everything back, good or bad, right or wrong..

When the lines were done - the echo of the wires Jensen had wrapped himself in for so long they’d galled him, cut into his skin and festered there - the artist added three more things. First _Tiamat_ , just under his heart, on his ribs. Then his own Angel name, _Quemuel_. And then _Sariel_ , Kane’s name. Jensen had had to take Jared’s word for it that they were spelled right, and he held the paper they’d been written on in his hand as they walked out, back down to the Devil’s hidden rooms, and Doc’s experiments. To add them to his shinies, to keep forever.

When they got back, Doc was there, sitting on her stool, knee bouncing, fingers twisting, something playing in earbuds that she jerked out the moment Jared and Jensen walked through, her eyes impossibly wide behind the scan lenses. 

“Where the fuck have you been? Nevermind. It’s done. Jared, it’s _done_. It’s time,” she said, and Jensen saw the little vial clutched in her fingers, pale-gold liquid. The key to everything, Jared’s cure. Maybe the end of the Company. 

Jensen had never been quite so terrified in his entire life, and beside him, Jared pulled in a jagged, hitching breath, and his long fingers curled into Jensen’s, squeezing tight.


	13. Chapter 13

_But if you come to a road where danger_  
_Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,_  
_Be good to the lad that loves you true_  
_And the soul that was born to die for you,_  
_And whistle and I'll be there._

' _Shake Hands_ ' - A.E. Housman

 

 

Jared took the shot about as well as Jensen expected - he really was a greenie about needles - and then just sat there, looking wan and little sick, his fingers shaking on the stick of the bright-pink sucker Doc had given him. She appeared to have an endless supply of the damn things, and she seemed to think they were a cure-all. She'd handed it over with a little pat on his shoulder and a tremulous smile; told him they'd start seeing some kind of reaction in about thirty-six hours.

What kind of reaction, she didn't say. Jensen thought that non-answer was pretty fucked, but he guessed she didn't really know. Jensen figured her saying nothing, though, would just make Jared that much twitchier than he already was.

Jensen left him sitting in Doc's station and took a shower, sluicing off the dregs of antiseptic gel and sweat, scrubbing his fingers through his hair and down over the tender-hot lines of the refreshed tattoo. The twisting, curling lines wound around his knuckles and over the backs of his hands, around and around his wrists, forearms, biceps. Jensen kept seeing them, so vivid and fresh, out of the corner of his eyes. Kept kicking back to _grey cold ache hunger_ , static-hiss flashbacks that he drove away with a sharp shake of his head.

They'd done a psych-suppressant, when he'd got 'volunteered' for the ArchANGELs. Before that, he'd spent eight months mostly in solitary, screaming himself awake; a trail of injured guards and prisoners in his wake, and three dead pusher-jocks, whose only crime had been being drunk and unruly, and loud. They'd been so fucking _loud_.... 

Jensen shook his head again and shut off the shower. He turned on the 'cycler and let it pull most of the water-mist out, until he was dry enough for the thin towel, followed by the fresh clothes he'd laid ready on the stainless cabinet sink. He stared at himself in the mirror film that had been stuck crookedly onto the wall, tracing the tattoo with his gaze, lingering on _Tiamat_ , on _Sariel_. 

These things, he had to remember. These things had built him. _Glorianna_ , and _Tiamat_ , the 'net, his Angels. The blood on his hands, that had soaked clear to the bone. These were his things, good or bad. He could not let them go; could not pretend they were not there, behind him, insubstantial witnesses to all that he had done, and would ever do. Bookkeepers of all his red-tinged debt. 

And now himself was in Jared, that first, possibly fatal, injection of poison into the Company's stranglehold 'net. Lethal cancer to their invasive symbiot. Maybe it would be...enough. Jensen dressed in his layers, feeling it like the armor he would never again wear, his barrier against the world. Or maybe theirs against him. He could, after all, cope with his ghosts. The world...probably could not. Jensen looped his scarf around his throat and then shoved the sink cabinet up into the wall and his towel down the laundry chute.

Then he went out to wait, and watch, and hope Jared hadn't been infected with the bad as well as the good.

 

Jensen's tattoo seemed to heal overnight, which Jared thought was unfair. Even with his own 'net, he'd never healed like that from the various scrapes and burns and hurts he'd accidentally inflicted on himself over the years. The difference, he supposed, between ANGEL and ArchANGEL, and tried not to dwell too much on what that meant, if you teased it out to the very end. 

(Would Jensen go on healing forever? Would he never age - never change - never end? Was he the new face of power, in the 'verse - eternal life for those that could pay? Jared hoped fervently that it wasn't so, because just _imagining_ some of the Company living for eternity made him want to puke. Or become a mass murderer.)

And while Jensen healed, Jared felt...off. He ignored it, at first. Psychosomatic, he figured, strung out as he was on nerves and caffeine and too much down-time. Doc said he couldn't go work, in case something…. Well, in case, and that _certainly_ didn't help.

But Jared didn't want details, either. Couldn't stand the thought of some template in his head, a checklist he was either going down, tick by tick, or utterly failing to meet at all. Both would be bad; both would make him crazier. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had someone on Carousel - other than the inevitable prostitutes - to just lay down with. Fuck and cuddle and share skin with.

For the very _first_ time, though, the thought flashed through his mind that he wouldn't mind _Jensen_ in that role - of bedmate, not prostitute, but still…. Jensen had been too sick, too hurt, too _wrong_ , for Jared to even entertain that notion, but now that he was...himself (was he?), it didn't seem like such a bad, or far-fetched, idea. But Jared shoved it away, anyway, because _he_ was not feeling up to anything like that. He felt….

Jared sat on the edge of his bunk, deep into a Carousel night, four days in, and tried very hard not to panic. He'd gone to sleep with a headache, a little fever, waking a time or two, aching and stiff all over, weak when he'd turned himself under the covers, shivering.

And now…. Now, his headache was close to skull-splitting, and he was huddled down on himself, shaking so hard with chills his teeth were chattering. It was hard for him to drag enough air in to fill his lungs, hard for him to _swallow_ , and his whole body felt limp and over-stretched and just… _weak_. Just sitting there was making his heart pound.

Jared took a couple of hitching, too-shallow breaths and stretched his feet out toward the floor. It was going to be cold, he knew it, and he was already flinching from the contact when he realized his left foot - leg - was hanging crookedly, twisting inward. Jared stared at it in the dim safe-light, fighting nausea. It was like...it was just like….

"No," Jared whispered. "No, no, _no_ , oh, fuck no, no…." There was a noise next door, through the thin wall that separated his cubby of a room from Jensen's, and Jared clamped his jaw shut. Closing his eyes, he breathed steadily and then pushed off the bunk. He had to get to Doc, he had to- Doc would know...fuck, _please_.

His feet hit the floor, instant shock of cold to his bare skin, and then his legs just...crumpled. Jared flailed, trying to grab the edge of the bunk, but his hands slid off, useless, and he hit hard - knees, hip, elbowshoulderchin. Something went _crunch_ and Jared tasted blood.

Then his door was shoved open, muscle overriding the slower hydraulic that tried to slide it away into the wall at a reasonable pace. _Jensen_ slammed it back, making something _else_ go crunch, and then hiss, and then he was crouching down beside Jared, his hands hovering, not quite touching. His face was pale and his hair sleep-tangled as he breathed in sharply.

"Ss- _Jared_ , status!" Jensen rapped out, and Jared flinched from the barely-controlled panic in Jensen's voice, trying hard to squash his _own_ rising hysteria.

"I'm f-fine," Jared said, and realized that he'd bitten his tongue. He swallowed, grimacing at the taste of blood, and tried to push himself up from his sprawl.

" _Don't_ , don't! Fuck, you sh-shouldn't move, don't m-move-" Jensen said, his hands fluttering, skimming the air an inch away from Jared's skin.

"I said I'm...fine. I jus' f-feel weak, jus' a li-li...ul… _li..ul_...f-fuck, _no_ -" Jared pushed his forehead hard into his wrists, eyes shut, the cold of the floor seeping through his sleep-shirt and pants, tremors running through him, locking his muscles tight into body-wracking spasms that made him ache.

 _Just the fever, just the fever, that's all, **all**...._

"I'm getting Doc," Jensen said abruptly, and Jared heard him move, heard him slap his palm down on the call button, waking the channel-specific com that connected their web of purloined bunks and labs and treatment rooms. The chills eased and Jared took in a shaking breath - another - trying to sit up but only sliding on the tile floor with a pathetic scrabble of clawed hands.

Jared heard someone muttering, sleep-rough voice and static. "Just get the fuck in here," Jensen snapped, and hit the panel hard enough to make Jared wince; a flat, cracking thump that had to have hurt something, plex or bone.

"I don' need- Jus' wanna go back...'oo…." Jared stopped talking, clamping his jaw against the chills and the fucking _words_. Words he couldn't get out, that fucking _t_ sound, that had been the first to go, when he couldn't get his tongue to lift up right. When he was little. When he was _sick_.

Jensen was back on the floor, crouching down so low his feet were flat, his knees practically up around his ears, arms tucked down between, his eyes absolutely huge in the dim, red-orange light. "Ss-sam, I'm sorry, the doc's coming, they're- they're coming-"

" _Jared_. I'm Jared. Hear me?"

Jensen nodded frantically, but Jared doubted he really understood. Another wave of chills rolled through him, locking him into a painful, juddering arch. His breath was wheezing now, a whistle in his throat that hurt. 

And then Doc was there, snapping on the overhead light and all but blinding him, ordering Jensen out of the way, her med-kit rattling down beside Jared as one of the Jo boys appeared in the doorway, half dressed, his eyes red-rimmed. Doc ran her scanner over Jared, stylus clicking against the glassine screen, her gaze flicking rapidly from it to Jared and back, and then she dug a bubble-pack of derms out of her kit and smoothed one, two, three on Jared's throat, all in a row.

A minute later, Jared went limp on the floor, warmth rolling through him, a blissful drowsiness, and he was barely aware of the Jo and Jensen snuggling him into his blanket and lifting him. He blinked and blinked again and then once more, only, that time, his eyes stayed shut, and everything. Just. Stopped.

 

Jared was aware, in a hazy way, of people talking; of little beeps and the hissing of a respirator; of little aches all over him; stickiness; a distant throb in his groin and another in his forearm. _Am I sick?_ he thought, and his heart tried to race, the fear tried to come, but warmth kept pushing through him, like water or hands, smoothing him down, over and over. There were voices, but they blurred, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. He could only hear some of the words, and none of them made any sense.

 _Need to...feed the fish...is it a school day?_ he said. Thought he said. He wasn't...sure.

_"...taking it apart. It has to...everything out...proteins, here, and...limbic system...days…."_

_"...he going...what about...kill…?"_

_"...just wait...it's...worry, okay?"_

"You're going to be fine, Jared," Doc said, emerging from the bright, fuzzy light that seemed to be all Jared could see. "You're doing great."

"It hur...ss," Jared said, his throat like broken glass, and someone touched him, a cool hand on his cheek, cupping his jaw, turning his head, ever so carefully...Jensen. 

Jensen with a cup, and a little sponge on a stick. He rubbed the cool, wet sponge on Jared's lips, inside his mouth, over his tongue. Some of the water trickled down his throat, and Jared tried to swallow and coughed instead.

"Sorry, m'sorry, I'll just-"

"S'goo...d," Jared whispered, and he didn't realize he was crying until Jensen wiped his face, smearing moisture over his cheekbones. He was just so… _tired_. So damn tired. He looked away from Jensen's drawn, pale face and swore he could see, in the shadows of the room, the dull glitter of the 'skele he used to wear, glassine scaffold that had carried him, stilt-limbed, across the fields at Kin-Gin. "Go 'way," Jared whispered, the tears quick and warm on his cheeks, and then the warmth came back again, so heavy, so complete, and folded him under.

He was glad to go.

 

Jensen couldn't stand to see Jared in the bed, lying on the gurney like Jensen'd lain, not all that long ago, with the same tubes and wires, same static-sticky generation web keeping slack muscles jumping, little electro-shock impulses to make them tighten and relax, over and over, so they wouldn't atrophy.

It made it seem like Jared was actually awake, sometimes, and sometimes like he was bleeding out, little after-shocks and nerve-twitches of a dying man, and neither were true, and Jensen hated all of it.

So he ran, instead. HE pounded the heavy bag and resistance wall in the gym, climbed the rungs and lifted the grav-weight and did everything he could to exhaust himself. And when he wasn't doing that, he was walking the station. Up to Carousel and down to the Axis Mundi, mapping it all over again, relearning the systems and cycles and timing of every patrol, every shift, every delivery and routine dock. 

He saw Tick-Tock again, just the once, but Tick-Tock wouldn't let him fight - said it wasn't worth what the _shetani_ would do to him, he said, if he allowed it. Jensen snarled at him, furious, but the man wasn't budging and it wouldn't be fair to him, anyway, so….

Jensen considered getting a job - taking Jared's place, maybe, on a skimmer crew - but he didn't really have the skills for that; didn't really have _any_ skills worth a shit, out here, in the wide World. He could strip down and clean and repair most any weapon, and could do the same for his armor. He could do some field medico work, and he could plan a fucking surgical strike, if anyone wanted to take out Alverez, maybe, or one of the other mines; could run down and board a pirate, maybe.

But nothing that _mattered_ , in the World. Another thing the Company hadn't bothered with, hadn't counted on him needing. Hadn't cared to dwell on, so secure they were in the knowledge that their useless castoffs would die, and not be a bother to anyone, anymore.

So for two weeks he tried to keep himself moving, moving, moving. Not thinking. Ate and drank and showered mechanically, just maintenance. Lay down to sleep when he couldn't keep his eyes open, anymore, and more often than not was awake again in a few hours, sitting in the dimness of his bunk, his shinies in his hands, hypnotic spark and flash, swaying slightly to and fro while he listened to the machines that kept Jared alive. Listened to the faltering, labouring heartbeat he could hear under all of the other noise.

Just waited, for Jared to wake up.

 

Jared woke up all at once, it seemed. Going from a light, restless sleep to _awake_ , jerking on the bed, trying to sit up and failing. Jensen scraped the mouthful of tank-meat and 'ponic veggie stew off his fork and into his mouth, chewing hard. He swallowed too soon and had to gulp a mouthful of water while Jared moved in an uncoordinated flail on the bed, looking around and blinking. Doc was right there, too, grinning at him, scanner glasses scrolling pale-blue lines, fast as thought, in front of her eyes as she stared at him.

Her stylus clicked and chimed on the glassine face of her transcriber, seemingly independent of any direction from her brain. Then she slipped it into its clip and slid the glasses down her nose a little, looking over the top of them at Jared. Her hair was a vivid, electric blue - it was stress relief, she said, to fuck with her look - and it made the green-vine tattoos on her jaw and throat seem to almost vibrate in brilliant contrast.

"And he wakes. Hey, Jared."

"Doc-" Jared said, or tried to; his voice was nothing but a scraped-down whisper, and it looked like it hurt coming out. Jensen all but leapt from his chair to Jared's side, lifting the little wand from the water tank and holding it just right to Jared's lips. Jared sipped slowly, tiny sips, over and over, until he finally sighed and sank back a half-inch, relieved, or so Jensen hoped.

Doc glanced over from her perusal of the telemetry machine, after making a minor adjustment. "All good?"

"Better," Jared said. He smiled slightly at her; smiled a little wider at Jensen, who just hovered there, utterly unsure of what to do with himself. He wanted to _touch_ , and didn't have the faintest idea if that would be at all welcome, so he pulled the sleeves of his sweater down over his knuckles and rubbed them together, like he used to do on the _Tiamat_ , grounding out the jittery energy he didn't have a place for.

Jared tried to move on the bed, tried to sit up higher, and Jensen reached for him before stopping himself. Jared pushed without any effect for a moment, and then sighed, falling back. 

"It's...been a while?"

"Two weeks, about," Doc said, and Jared's eyes went wide, his mouth turning down a little.

"No wonder I feel like shit."

"Are you in pain?" Doc asked, and Jared frowned a little, thinking.

"I- No? No, I'm really not. I should be, but I'm just...not. Just tired. Everything feels...heavy."

"That's great. Okay." Doc pulled her stool up close to the gurney and Jensen stepped back, intending to go into the corner of the room, to just lean there and listen. But Jared put out a thin, shaking hand, just catching the hem of Jensen's sweater.

"Stay, okay? Will you?" His dark eyes were shadowed, sunk a little into his face, but he looked...hopeful, and pleading, so Jensen shrugged and settled against the side of the gurney. Jared didn't let go.

"So you know the Company - your old 'net - it didn't cure you, not really."

"Yeah," Jared said, and Jensen remembered the vid Jared had shown him, remembered Jared saying he could go back to that, if he lost the 'net, if the Company took it away. 

"Right. The 'net they implanted gave you a kind of...superstructure, over your own. It repaired damaged nerves and muscle tissue, organs - it suppressed all the symptoms. It even grew you some new stuff, made your bones better, that kind of thing. But the Grimes was always there, dormant, and if you'd stopped with the boosters and regenerations, or the stabilizers I was giving you…."

"Back to the 'skele," Jared whispered, and his fingers clutched convulsively at Jensen's sweater-hem. Jensen risked a tentative pat on them, and Jared looked up, smiling weakly at him. Old fear was in his gaze.

"He knows that shit," Jensen said, looking at Doc. "Just...tell him."

"Okay. So, it worked, Jared. Jensen's cells, the cells from his 'net, they killed yours. Wiped it out. But that set the Grimes loose. And...well, we figured it might take a year, if you ever lost your 'net, but...something the Company did...it was like the storm, in Jensen. Your Grimes...it's called _metastasis_. It spread exponentially."

"You were really fucked up," Jensen translated, and Jared snorted softly,, but his fingers didn't let go of Jensen's sweater.

"I felt like I did...when I was a kid. Fever and...just weak. Couldn't move things right, couldn't...couldn't talk. I thought it was...coming back because…. I thought it killed my 'net and I was....was going to-" Jared stopped, jaw clenching, breathing a little too fast, and one of the monitors was chirring softly, gentle warning.

"It did. It was," Doc said. Jared shuddered, and Jensen snarled silently at her, making her flinch back. 

"Don't _say_ that," Jensen hissed, and Doc shoved her hand back through her hair, the stylus tangling in it for a moment.

"It's _true_. It's what happened. The point is, you _fixed_ it, Jensen. Or...the vaccine did. Your cells, your 'net. That's mostly why you've been so sick, Jared. The Grimes was attacking every cell in your body, and the vaccine was fighting back. Destroying it, system by system. It _won_ , Jared. The vaccine won."

"My hero," Jared said, and he looked up at Jensen and smiled, wide enough to show his dimples. But his eyes were still bleak.

Jensen leaned in a little closer, into the thick scent of disinfectant and sweat and illness. Jared needed a shower. "Don't think about it," he whispered, and Jared laughed this time, but it sounded too choked and ragged, too close to a sob. "That's what I do. I just...don't think about...things," Jensen said. He leaned back, shooting a _look_ at Doc, and she sighed.

"Yeah, okay, we'll do details later. Just- Jared, you need to understand, it _worked_. The vaccine killed your crippled 'net, and then it killed the Grimes, and then it...implanted itself. Budded you a new 'net. It's still growing, it's not done yet."

Doc hopped up and did something with her stylus and one of the machines, and a holo faded in from thin air, Jared's body overlaid with a fine web of lines, filaments of blue and gold and silver-white. They were everywhere.

"Is that…? _Damn_. Damn, look at it," Jared said, and he lifted one hand, just a few inches, turning it a little, watching the lines move as he flexed his fingers.

"Yeah. It's fixing everything, it's putting you where you _should_ be, like the Grimes never existed. Like you were never sick. And...I don't think you ever will be, again," Doc added, and Jared let his hand drop. Jensen just stared at the lines, at Jared's 'net. _Jensen's_ , in a way.

It looked like a scan from when he was on _Tiamat_. Every six months or so, they'd all get a scan, get an adjustment to their go-packs and down-packs and everyday drugs. Keeping them fit, Morgan had said. Keeping them crippled, Jensen figured now. Making sure no 'net was doing what Jensen's had.

Making sure no Angel could fly without the Company's wings.

"I don't mind that. Wait. Do you mean…? What do you mean?"

"I mean, it seems like your 'net - and Jensen's, too - it's going to keep you from ever getting sick again. From anything. No colds, no infections, no nothing."

"Really? Was that-? Did yours always do that?" Jared asked, turning his head on the pillow to look at Jensen, and Jensen shrugged, nodded.

"We never did get sick, any of us. And we got shore leave, got fucked up a lot, but..nobody ever was sick the next day. Figured...figured they didn't want us on down time. In case. Didn't want us on any slack, and- We had to be ready, to go. Any time." In fact, the only time Jensen could remember anybody being sick was when Morgan would withhold the daily dose. Punishment for some infraction, usually just a couple days.

But they were...really fucking bad days, and most people kept to the rules, rather than go through that. Jensen shivered and huddled into his sweater a little more, shying away from those memories. More things he wanted to forget. More things he was bound to carry, for ever and all.

"Looks like you'll probably heal faster, too, maybe move a little faster; better hearing, perfect eyesight. Not like Jensen. We don't have all the things they had, stem cells and the nanobot implants, but...you're gonna be one tough bitch, Jared."

"Already was," Jared said, and this time his laugh was more real, his eyes happier, despite the circles under them. Jensen felt his shoulders unknot a little, seeing that, and smiled himself, wracking his brain for something clever to say, something encouraging. Before he could find the right words, though, there were pounding footsteps in the hall and the Jo boys burst in, geared up - armored jackets and weapons in holsters, bags dangling from fists - keyed up. No, worse than that. _Scared_.

Jensen felt himself pushing away from the gurney, back straight, breathing deep. Fight-flight- _move_. Like before a mission, like when a go-pack hit. Adrenaline, endorphins, _excitement_. " _Report_ ," Jensen snapped, and one of the Jo boys straightened, reflexive habit.

"Trouble. We got- fucking _trouble_ ," Jo One panted, and Jo Two was still moving, going down on one knee by a cabinet and yanking it open, starting to shovel its contents into a second, empty bag he'd pulled from the first. 

"Company worm," Jo One said. "Found out you'd disappeared off their radar. They got into one of our side servers. Got enough info to get suspicious, and our listener out at Reveille, he just heard...they're moving on us. On Axis." He licked his lips and shot a look at his brother, who nodded. "They scrambled a troopship and they'll be here in...five days, maybe less."

Jensen felt that like a slap, and he took an involuntary step forward. "Whu-what ship. Who?"

"Jesus, who cares? We got to _go_ ," the other Jo boy said, and Jensen was for one moment just standing, and the next he was moving, moving Jo One with him, hard, a fast shove backward and into a wall, _bang_ , Jensen's fist in his jacket. He could hear the other Jo and Doc yelling, tinny and muffled behind him.

" _Who_?"

Jo struggled against Jensen's hold for a moment and then slumped, looking freaked out. " _T-Tiamat_. They're sending the Tiamat."

Jensen just stood there, staring at him, until Jo Two put hands on him and shouted in his ear. Gradually, Jensen realized he was holding Jo One up off his feet, at least a foot off the floor, crushing him up against the wall. Jensen let him go with a little gasp after air, moving away as Jo Two moved in, checking his brother for injury.

 _Tiamat_. She would be _here_. They would be. His Angels. Five, Sinna, Jinx. Oh _fuck_ , Kane. All of them. Jensen… _wanted_. Wanted them. To see, to touch. To _feel_ , but that was gone, now, burned out of him, lost forever. He clenched his hands into fists and kept himself, just, from punching the wall.

"Jensen," Jared said, low but urgent - pleading - and Jensen turned slowly to look at him. Jared's cheeks had two spots of hectic color in them, and he was sitting up a little, Doc at his side. "They- They're not gonna stop just 'cause it's you. They _can't_. And we- We gotta be gone, Jensen. Before they get here."

"But they're mine," Jensen said, and his voice was too small, too thin. Too _young_. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling adult muscle and bone, adult _shape_. He was not six. He was not twelve, or even fourteen, and seeing the last of the sets from _Glorianna_ dying, succumbing to disease or despair. He was _Quemuel_ , he was an ArchANGEL, even if his wings had been clipped.

"I know, Jensen. But," Jared lifted a thin hand to push at his hair, grimacing, no doubt, at the feel of it, and Jensen took a step back to him. And then another, until he was opposite Doc, and close to Jared's side, staring down at the rumpled covers over Jared's chest. "You know, it's not the same, anymore. You and them. You _know_ that," Jared said, so soft, and Jensen drew in a hard, sharp gasp of air, lifting his head.

"I...have to see them," Jensen said, quiet. Steady. Looking Jared in the eyes. "I have to. And then we can- We'll go. They'll let me."

"Jensen, you don't _know_ that."

"Yeah, I do,” Jensen said, and reached out, gently - slowly - to touch Jared's cheek. He looked up at Doc, and then at the Jo boys, who were both looking furious and a little freaked. "I'm staying," Jensen said.

He let his hand drop from Jared's cheek, and strode away from the gurney, intending to go...somewhere, anywhere else, so he could _think_. Somewhere he could get small and quiet and still, and let his thoughts unsnarl. As he went through the doorway, he could hear the Jo boys’ voices rising, irritated; he could hear Doc, talking fast, but nothing from Jared.

And then. 

Then there was the faintest of tugs. A touch along his mind, down his nerve-endings. A whisper, that said _don't go_. A pull of need, light as a breath, and Jensen stopped dead in the hallway, closed his eyes tight and curled his hands around his skull, curling over himself, breathing too hard, too fast.

Pushing _out_ , hard as he could, reaching. _Question question question_ , in synch with the pound of his heart.

 _Jensen?_ , a pulse of wonder and light, and Jensen spun on his toes, staggered and righted himself and _ran_ , shoulder catching the doorjamb so hard he was jarred sideways, stumbling and catching himself and then _thump_ into the foot of Jared's gurney.

Into _Jared_ , formless warmth and wonder and _awe_ , and it was the 'net, it _was_ , Jared to Jensen, Jensen to Jared. Jensen's hand closed on Jared's blanketed ankle, and the link flared bright, so bright, a flash of actinic fire in Jensen's brain that surged and settled and faded, down to a pale, glimmering pulse of heatless light. Connection, link, _family_. Jared.

"Jensen," Jared whispered, and Jensen didn't know he was crying until he tasted salt.


	14. Chapter 14

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright ___  
_In the forests of the night,_  
_What immortal hand or eye_  
_Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?_ \- William Blake - 'The Tiger' 

  


They had five days, but Raleigh and Doc and the rest were leaving sooner. Raleigh and his crew were rapidly and completely dismantling most of their network, leaving only a small cell, a scattered handful of contacts to keep information flowing. In total, seventeen people were leaving, including Jared and Jensen, but thirteen of them were leaving within 30 hours. They had a ship; that merc's crew had agreed to take them, out of Axis and out of that system; one longish jump to Tripoli, a dark little spot of mass in the middle of nothing. Owned by nobody, officially; just big enough to pull a ship down out of jump, and close enough to three different systems to be the perfect jumping-off point for a longer journey. 

At Tripoli, they were transferring to the _Diomedes_ , a ship owned and run by the _Advocatus Diaboli_ , though filtered through layers of shell companies and hollow IDs. The _Diomedes_ would take them...elsewhere, for as long as necessary; until Doc and the rest had cracked the code, synthesized a vaccine, and were ready to distribute it.

The whole plan made Jared nervous, because while his life had been ruled by the Company, he'd always had a destination, a schedule, a fucking _job_. Now he was going to be flung into the great unknown in pretty much every sense of the word, and it just made him...antsy.

Which made Jensen really, really irritated, because Jensen could _feel_ Jared, and that kind of hyped-up, nervous, adrenaline-fueled emotion through the 'net translated in Jensen's mind (and body) to _gogogo_. To _fight_ , pre-drop, pre-battle tension that made him snap and snarl and lash out. Doc finally took Jared aside and forced a handful of derms on him, told him if he didn't figure out a way to calm himself the hell down, Jensen was going to lose it, but seriously.

Jared stood there and watched Jensen utterly destroy a balky resistance machine in the gym with his bare hands, leaving bits and hydraulic fluid scattered everywhere like some kind of murder scene, his hands smeared purple with the stuff. His tattoos were surreally bright against his pale skin, and the ghostly tracery of the 'net were like lines of faint blue smoke, cross-hatching everywhere under his skin. Jared had them too, now that his new 'net was fully integrated, instead of just in his spine and brain.

Jensen looked on the verge of _something_. Not a complete breakdown, but his eyes were wide and wild and he was so damn tense it hurt to look at his shoulders. So Jared smoothed a derm onto his forearm, took some long, deep breaths and did his best to get himself under control. Because on top of _Jared's_ nerves, Jensen was having his own. Jared could feel them, and that kind of fed his own, and it was a crazy loop of emotion and intention that made Jared wonder if this was why the Angels were all so fucking _crazy_ , because to have this times ten or fifty or however many Angels made up a...whatever it was...was damn overwhelming.

"Platoon, for fuck's sake," Jensen said, wiping sweat and hydraulic fluid off his arms. "There were thirty-six of us, and the 'net was only keyed to _us_. We weren't linked into _Dominions_ or _Seraphim_ or anything." Jared felt a shuddery wave of _aggression_ , when Jensen thought of those other Angels, and got a brief, reeling kind of flashback, to _us_ and _them_ and _fight_.

"But, I thought- You're all Angels. How could-? Why did you hate them?'

"We didn't-" Jensen stopped, and Jared felt bewilderment and loss, that _we_ that colored every memory and informed every thought about his Angels just driving home, over and over, that that _we_ didn't exist any more. "We didn't hate them. They were...different. Not _us_. Not _Nephilim_." 

Jared felt the trembly ache of that loss twist in the 'net and then turn back to _rage_. Jensen hissed through his teeth and turned, pivoting smoothly, then lashed out with his fists at a padded sort of tree-thing, pummeling it. 

"Right, okay, fuck," Jared muttered. He sat down on the padded floor, crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and tried to just breath, slow and even. His brain searched for some kind of distraction and eventually settled on a vid he'd seen once of a distant planet that was mostly water and crazy rock spires, with three moonlets that pulled the water up into humps and dragged it back and forth, endlessly. The whole of the surface was a strange, silvery-blue-green, webbed with pale-pink foam, swirling and lifting and falling. 

He played the vid over and over in his head, trying to remember all of it, trying to remember the music that had accompanied it. Something breathy and mournful, something a little lost sounding. He _concentrated_ on it, trying to block out Jensen's rage, or at least not react to it; trying to damp down his own anxiety - hell, his outright _terror_. Feeling, too, the slow, soothing wave of whatever was in the derm curl all through him.

He sat there for he didn't know how long, until he felt the warm, flitting touch of Jensen's attention, and then felt _Jensen_ , sitting down opposite him, breathing hard. _Question question_ in the 'net, and Jared felt his mouth turning up a little, a hesitant smile.

"Kepler. It's a...a waterworld. Or, some water. I don't remember. Mostly liquid, rocky core, some rocky formations that are tall enough to get above the surface. It's kind of pretty."

"Fucking nightmare," Jensen muttered, and Jared caught a brief flash of some memory, some training exercise. Underwater maneuvers, feeling nauseated and unnervingly out of place, creeping along under a kilometer of liquid, nothing but blackness all around them, and pressure enough to kill, if a suit breached.

Deep, open expanses of liquid were as foreign to Jared as they had been to Jensen, but Jared had never considered what it would be like to be _under_ all that.

"Jesus." Jared shivered, and then opened his eyes. Jensen was so close their knees were practically touching, slick with sweat, shirt gone, bruised hands on his thighs and his chest still working hard, dragging in air in hard gulps. But his gaze was steady, he felt _better_. The loop no longer fed them both in a twisting, _rising_ spiral but just hummed contentedly, exhaustion and a soothing kind of blankness, now that they'd both settled down.

Jensen was watching Jared, his head tipped to the side just a little, his eyes brilliantly green in the overhead lights, his face just so damn _beautiful_ , a collection of angles and shadows, curves and hollows that was perfect in a way that people just _weren't_.

"I'm a person," Jensen said, his eyes wide, and Jared felt his mouth sag open for a moment.

"I know that! I-I'm...sorry, I-" 

_Same_ , Jensen insisted, a little hurt and a little irritation bleeding through, _chosen_ , and Jared shook his head.

"No. I mean - yes. _Glorianna_ stock, I know, they chose our gene-donors for a reason but...you...I think mine was more for...brains."

Jensen just stared at him, and then he grinned, unnerving and amazing, and reached out to cup his fingers around Jared's cheek, stroking the flat of his thumb over Jared's lower lip, a feather-touch that sent a bolt of sensation through Jared from mouth to groin. _Idiot_ , and affection, and an underlying current of arousal that made Jared blush. He'd _heard_ about Angels, and what they did. Everyone knew-

"Not fucking whores," Jensen said, everything warm snapping off like a light, and Jared twitched at the loss.

" _Fuck_ , fuck, I know, I'm sorry, _fuck_ , I can't- This is really hard, Jensen."

"Fuck you," Jensen growled, and he twisted, moving to get up. Jared leaned right into him and grabbed his wrist, only to find himself flat on his belly a moment later, his arm twisted painfully up between his shoulder blades, Jensen's knee in his thigh, pressing hard enough to cut off the circulation and make the muscle throb. Jared yelped and Jensen froze for a long, long moment, breathing hard, and then he was up and gone, back to the machines, back to hurting himself, and it was Jared's fault _again_.

Jared didn't bother sitting up, this time. He just lay there on his face, smelling disinfectant and plastic, casting _sorry sorry sorry_ , and thinking hard, this time about the tilapia fish they'd had on Kin-Gin, in the tank; how as a kid he'd watch their effortless circling and darting. How the cool, silvery blues and greens had mesmerized him, soothed him, and made him achingly envious, because he had not - could never - move with that grace and ease. Never would, he thought, until the lottery...until the 'net.

And now here he was, with everything of Kin-Gin, at long last, purged from him, and it felt like he'd lost his moms all over again; like he'd lost his home and his past and his _self_. He'd been remade so many times, he was barely still there, and now he was something new all over again, and it was just...so damn hard, sometimes. So fucking hard.

He felt more than heard Jensen circling back to him - _circling_ him, like the fish had circled the tank, curious and a little sorry, but still a little mad, too.

"What...were those things?"

"Fish," Jared said. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at Jensen, who looked thoughtful. "They lived in the tank, in the greenhouse. Fertilizer and food for the stuff we grew; moisture."

"You liked them," Jensen said, hesitant, and Jared nodded. "But you ate them."

"That's what they were there for. But they were pretty."

"You're pretty," Jensen said, utterly nonsensical, and Jared gaped up at him for a moment, and then had to laugh, curling a little on the mat. Jensen folded down next to him, reaching out a slow hand to pat at Jared's hair. 

"I'm an idiot," Jared muttered, his face half an inch from Jensen's thigh, and Jensen patted him again.

"It's okay, I don't mind," Jensen said, and Jared snorted. "Want me to show you that move?" Flash in the 'net, of _twist push pressure_ , and Jared winced. 

"Yeah, okay."

It took a while. Jensen had to show Jared how to fall, first, and how to hold without hurting _himself_ ; how to not overextend, not twist too far. But he got it, eventually. The muscle-memory from the 'net helped, Jensen's training bleeding through, moving Jared's body without any conscious thought of his own, sometimes, just _doing_ , and Jared would mess it up, then, in pure astonishment.

But Jensen laughed at him, a deep and happy laugh, throwing his head back, and that was a first. It made Jared feel like he was _glowing_ , like he was lit up on the inside, all smoldering warmth and sparks. Jensen, obviously feeling it too, looked at Jared with that blinding grin, eyes so very _alive_ and full of affection and…. It was good. It was really good. Finally.

Jared just hoped it would last.

 

Raleigh, Doc and the rest were finally gone, leaving just Jensen and Jared and the Jo boys, inhabiting a last couple of bare rooms in the winding corridors behind Purgatory. The merc ship - the _Falcon_ \- planned a stop-and-turn, heading straight back to Axis after dropping off the rest. If the _Tiamat_ let them go, if she let them _live_. Jensen had made it clear it would just be him and Jared, the Jo boys weren't linked in, they weren't Angels in the slightest, and it would just be too much distraction for the soldiers, hyped on go-packs and maybe not actually willing, much less able, to stop and listen.

The Jo boys didn't like it, but they were too busy dismantling the last of the _Diaboli's_ presence on Axis to argue about it much.

One of the people who'd stayed was up in Station Control, third-tier scanner, linked in to everything, but low enough to be mostly ignored. And a little over two days after that first alert, another came whispering down, and Jared looked up from the game he was half-heartedly playing on his data-spot to see Jo One in the doorway, looking pale.

"Stat-Con just called. The _Tiamat_...she's here. Just dropped, nadir of Axis. She's fucking six hours out."

" _Shit_ ," Jared said, his heart leaping in his chest. He heard a muffled thump from next door and then Jensen was there, his eyes red-rimmed and his hair a mess, _question_ and _alarm_ in the 'net. 

"What-?"

" _Tiamat_. She's _here_. How is that fucking possible?" Jo said, and Jensen shrugged, looking away. 

"Troopships are faster than they say," Jensen said finally, as if giving up the deepest of secrets, and maybe he was, Jared didn't know. He knew he felt _longing_ and _hope_ and _mine mine mine_ from Jensen; a desperation to have those people _back_ , a want so strong it hurt. 

It hurt Jared, who had thought, maybe, that since Jensen could hear him now, that they could hear each other, 'nets linked and Jensen not alone anymore, that it might be...enough.

"They're my _Nephilim_ ," Jensen said, hurt in his voice at _Jared's_ hurt, and Jo made an irritated sound, used to the weird conversations Jared and Jensen had now, but still annoyed by them.

"Get your shit together, now, 'cause we gotta go. Jo's getting somebody to meet us down at one of the old evac docks. They'll get us away, take us out to system edge to wait for the _Falcon_. No matter what happens with the ship, we still gotta be able to disappear." The 'with or without you' was unspoken, but heard.

"Okay," Jared said, staring at Jensen. He felt a little sick, and a little lost, because he'd just realized that when you got right down to the bottom of things - down to the bone - a whole lot of Jensen was still and would forever be that boy on a tomb of a ship, fighting with his every breath to keep his sibs, his _family_ , alive. 

And the _Nephilim_ , they were family, too; _his_ to protect. The only family he'd had for a very long time, that he'd _remembered_ , because standard op for every Angel recruited was a psy-block that suppressed your memories, kept you from repeating old patterns. Helped you form new ones. And what with the 'net and the drugs and the training...those new patterns were damn-near impossible to break.

"I hope they remember that," Jared said to Jensen, and Jensen rubbed the backs of his fingers over his tired eyes.

"I gotta-" _Clean up be ready see me_ , nerves and anticipation and some impulse Jared didn't quite get. Jensen pushed away from the door jamb and headed back to his room, and Jared cursed softly under his breath and got up, dragging his half-full duffle out from under the bunk. Gotta move, gotta _go_. Get this done.

 

Jared shoved the last of his clothing into his duffle, and glanced around the room, checking. Nothing was left that he wanted or needed, and so he shouldered his bag and lifted the duffle and stepped out. Jensen's door was open, his own duffle lying half-empty half-in, half-out of the doorway. Jared had bought Jensen clothes: military-style pants with pockets all down the legs, basic underwear, tee shirts with short and long sleeves, a couple sweaters. A toiletry kit, the duffle, his own data-spot. Jensen had taken his little collection of shiny trash and tucked it away into an inner pocket of the duffle first thing; it had looked a little bigger, like he'd added to it. More bits of polychrome wrapping paper, another row of bright, cartoon sandwich stickers. 

He'd noticed Jared noticing with a little shame, and wariness, but mostly a warm kind of satisfaction in the 'net, and Jared certainly hadn't thought for a moment to tell him leave it, or make fun. He was getting that same feeling, now, from Jensen, and Jared stopped in the doorway, looking in, wondering what he was going to see.

He saw Jensen, shirtless in the closet of the bathroom, looking at Jared with wide, ever-so-green eyes, both hands braced on the edge of the stainless sink. His hair was gone. Well - not _gone_ , Jared amended, blinking. He'd just clipped all that long, slightly curling hair _off_ , cutting it close to his skull. It was uneven, a little longer at the top and toward the front, spiked up gently with water. Water on his shoulders, and it looked like he'd just finished cleaning up stray hairs. He looked...older, just a little - the clean, square line of his jaw more pronounced, the strong cords of his neck not hidden under that dark fall. He looked _military_ , and capable, and dangerous, and Jensen smirked at him, still that _uncertain_ , shivery nerves in the 'net. 

"Wow," Jared said softly. "It's good." _Good, nice, like it_ , and Jensen snorted, turning back to the mirror, calm again, mostly; nerves and longing for the Angels a constant thrum just under his (their) skin. Jensen made a face, then scrubbed a towel over his shoulders and neck and head, spiking his hair a little more, before staring at himself in the mirror and then back at Jared. 

"I need- They have to...recognize me. See me." _Me, Quemel_ , Jensen thought, a flash of sleek bodies uncoupling from shadow, pulling free of their armor, pale, hairless skin gleaming.

"They'll know you," Jared said, and Jensen looked in the mirror one more time, and then shoved the towel into the 'cycler, clipped the sink back up into its niche and stepped out, sliding the door to behind him. He finished dressing in quick, economical movements: tee-shirt and sweater and then his coat and scarf, looping it around his throat and even once up and over his skull, hooding himself. Gloves with the tips of the fingers cut off, and sharpened spines of glassine worked into the palms and fingers, mostly-invisible cutting edges that would pass a metal detector and not even register until they were slicing across your skin. Those went in his pocket, though; they wouldn't do a thing against armor. He stomped his feet down into the steel-toed, reinforced boots Jared had given him, buckled the straps, and then checked them over before resettling his scarf. Purposeful. Steady.

It felt like he was donning the armor again, wrapping himself up in glassine and titanium-tungsten alloy, ceramic and steel. It was comfort, and it filtered through the 'net and down Jared's spine, making his shoulders slump a little and his hands unknot from their white-knuckled fists. It was something. Jensen glanced around him one last time and then hoisted up the duffle, clipping it shut and slinging it over his shoulder.

"Jo boys are gonna take our stuff down, stow it for us. And they'll wait for us down there. Long as they can."

"Sure," Jensen said, distracted, and the 'net was just a steady hum of energy, nerves, excitement, anticipation. But all of it battened down, locked up. As if Jensen were steeling himself against too much emotion, too much hope. Jared latched onto that armored up, comfort-feeling and tried to project it back; tried to give Jensen and himself some small bubble of calm and rationality, before….well, before.

They walked out of the room and down the corridor, turn and turn again, a faint beat of noise from Purgatory, bass and voices and feet dancing, bodies moving. Just a whisper in the still, warm air. And then they were at the bank of service mag-lifts, the Jo boys standing by the nearest, hung with gear and looking antsy. 

"Here we go," Jared said, slinging their stuff at the Jo boys feet, little nod of acknowledgement sent their way, and then he and Jensen stepped into the other lift and...went.

 

 _Tiamat's_ dock was in 20-E, the docking level closest to the 'top' of the station, just below Carousel. It was exclusively for military use - not even Company security got to dock there - and the umbilicals and machinery that provided the docking coupling, recycling and waste removal, and all other functions, could all be taken over by the switcher on board a troopship, rendering any docking assistance unnecessary. Few ships would go that route, though, as it was unnecessarily hazardous in all but the most desperate of times.

 _Tiamat_ had declared a hands-off, according to the whisper sent down to Jo One, relayed to the com-plug in Jensen's ear. So Jared knew they wouldn't be encountering any docking crews. No security or customs, either, though Jared was sure that had to grate. But Axis wouldn't dare dispute her.

The lift took them down, and they trod deserted, shadowy corridors, power-save shutting down all but the most basic of lighting; ready-lights glowing above hatches, orientation arrows in glowing paint, for the never-to-be-entertained occasion that Axis might lose gravity. The air was warm and a little dusty, ozone and that hot plastic smell that came from the auto-cleaners. 

They finally reached a dock hatch, a pressure seal door that could keep a person safe if a dock was breached, if decompression had sucked out the atmosphere. The light above it was a steady, deep purple-blue color that made Jared squint. Jensen swiped the disposable entry card over the sensor and the light blinked before turning a deep red, and the hatch unsealed with a huff, sliding into the wall. Beyond was a lock big enough for three or four people, and they waited while the door behind sealed, and the atmosphere was checked, and then the dock-access door opened, a blink of lights from red to green. They stepped out into cold _damp_ air, instant shock and chill, and Jared hunched into his jacket even as he looked up and around, seeing catwalks and gantries fifty meters or more up, crisscrossed with light and shadow. Umbilicals and cables hung like gut in cradles of webbing and _sight lines, ours, theirs, cold because volatiles, friction, damp because static, that's water, waste, oxy-mix, 'cycling through that bay door there, ship access there, three exits for us, only two for them, troops and officers and crew no difference_.

"Fuck," Jared said, rattled, and Jensen grinned at him. 

"Sit-rep. You gotta know."

Jared nodded, breathing as he allowed the cascade of information to flow over him and settle into his brain and bones. The ‘net was a continuous murmur as they paced forward across the rubberized dock floor, up to the hazard line’s black and yellow diagonals. Beyond was for ship personnel and dock crew only.

" _ **Tiamat** just pinged the docking arm_ ," came through the 'net, through Jensen from Jo One, and the flow of observation cut off and a wave of excitement and apprehension slammed through Jensen into Jared. It was tinged with _longing_ , with _love_ , and Jared reached out, blindly, and found Jensen's hand, gripping it tight.

Jensen gasped softly and squeezed back, his hand warm, his fingers trembling. Something was whirring and humming, somewhere in the towering wall of the outer skin of the dock, and lights were flashing now, amber and red and blue, and a soft, chiming alert came from everywhere. 

_Dock, docking, arm's got them, pulling them in, here we go, here we go-_ "Ready-steady?" Jensen said, looking over at Jared, squeezing his hand still, and Jared breathed in and gulped and nodded hard.

"Go, go, go," he said, echo in Jensen's head, _yes_ and _confirmation_ and _happy_ in the 'net. The whole dock seemed to shudder then, sub-sonic noise, coming up through their feet. And then...a whisper, a rumble, a _roar_ , and the lights over the access strobed, slow and then fast, red to amber to green. The ship lift was moving along the track, exiting the hull at the last moment to mate with Axis's lock. The lights steadied on green and there was a clanging, clashing sound of machinery, lift and lock mating, sealing. 

Jared wondered who would come out, who _Tiamat_ would send for one lost Angel. 

_Captain maybe, LT, Morrigan,_ Jensen thought, a welter of emotions around that name that surged up and were pushed away too quickly for Jared to analyze. 

_Company rep?_ Jared wondered, and got a flash of disgust and derision from Jensen.

"Climb up your asshole to count your teeth," Jensen muttered, and Jared sputtered out a shocked laugh. His heart was pounding and he was all but panting, and Jensen's hand in his was gripping so tight he could barely feel his fingers.

And then the black-and-yellow striped access door slid _up_ , and the one behind it slid aside, and air puffed out, mis-matched atmo, steam or condensation or something. There was no light, just gleams. Color on metal, movement, far back in shadow, and then...

"Angels," Jared breathed, and the 'net went abruptly to static overload, too much, too fast, too _loud_ , and all Jared could do was stare.

 

 

Five of them, monstrous machines of armor that moved with a disturbing, fluid grace, all hiss and whir and tick. Giant wind-up toys but oh, fuck, no, not _toys_. Never toys. Jared felt Jensen's grip on his hand crushing even tighter; felt his own heart leap and race as Jensen's did, the 'net still disturbingly blank, so much input it had fuzzed into nothing, a static-shock hiss in Jared's brain, and all he could do was breathe, and breathe, and try to keep his knees from going out from under him.

Two of the armors were black, with polished-copper edges and joins that glowed a vivid, acid green. Swirling patterns had been etched into the chest plates, and tiny blue-white lights glowed, scattershot, on the arms and legs, the torsos; where eyes should be, and mouths. Thin blades of silver-edged metal rattled and lifted and settled again, from shoulders and neck, ribs and thighs, like the agitated ruffling of a bird's feathers. They came first, slender compared to the others, taller than Jared, and moving with deceptive speed.

Behind and between them was a bulkier armor, this one silver-grey, edged in gold and livid purple. The tiny lights gleamed the pink-orange of a Kin-Gin sunrise, and the patterns etched into this armor was a little more angular, sharper.

The last two were _huge_ , coming up on the outside, a head above the others, broader and thicker but still as graceful as fish in water, nothing clumsy in their impossibly long strides. Those armors were a glowing, smutted ruby red, edged in silver and frost-blue, tiny lights gleaming gold. Jared could _feel_ when those armored feet came down, shaking up through his bones.

 _Gibborim_ , Jensen thought, the 'net clearing abruptly. _Naphaim, Enim. Nephilim, my Angels, mine -_

The armor - the _Angels_ \- stopped just the other side of the hazard line, and Jared had to look _up_ at faceplates half a meter or more above his own head. Close up, the armor exuded heat and hot-metal smell, and a rich tang of hydraulics, oil, something…. A hand lifted, then an arm, and Jared felt Jensen yank him back and move in front of him, letting go of Jared's hand.

Blood rushed back into his fingers, tingling, and Jared tucked that hand up under his jacket, biting his lip as he watched _Jensen_. The 'net was a blur again, emotions too fast, too intense, just _want mine family lonely need_ , shuddering through them both, making Jared's eyes sting with sudden tears, because 'net or no, Jensen _missed_ them, needed them...felt adrift, cut off, _diminished_.

There was a moment of utter stillness, and then the faceplates lifted, folding back and down, leaving five faces free of armor. Pale faces, all but one; hairless except for brows and lashes; sex indeterminate in three. The dark one and the one in the middle, those were men, the others were just...inhuman, smooth and too perfect.

Names tumbled through the net, stutter-flash of knowledge, images, bodies and mouths and voices and touch, kiss, _love brother sister mine_.

" _Kane_ ," Jensen said, the word torn out of him, his voice knife-edged, and that one in silver-grey and gold and purple, that one suddenly grinned, white teeth and blue, blue eyes, and tear-tracks. He pushed forward, and Jensen stepped closer and then _up_ , onto some bit of armor that folded out, making a spike for Jensen's foot. And then Jensen was clinging to the armor, fists wrapped around some other parts, kissing. Gasping for air and Jared could feel the tears on Jensen's face, the clench of his belly and ache in his throat.

He could feel Kane's mouth, and he bit his own lip, hard, to get out of that loop.

"Jen, Jensen, _Quemuel_ ," the others said, all of them at once, crowding as close as the armor would allow, and Jensen was laughing, leaning _out_ , kissing the dark one _Malik_ and then the other in red armor _Sinna, fuck, so beautiful_ and then _Jinx, Jinx_ , another squad leader, like Jensen had been, Jinx and _Five_ , different from Jinx only in that _her_ brows were shaved, deep blue cut with skin, diagonal lines, where Jinx's were startling black on _his_ pale, pale skin.

They each got in near enough to kiss, for Jensen to touch - a hand on a cheek, curving around a shaved skull - and then he kissed Kane again, hard, before slipping down, stepping back a pace, and the five all went down, with eerie synchronicity, to one knee. 

"Jensen," Kane said, and he looked furious, but also utterly bewildered. "They said you died."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Such a long pause. I am so very sorry, Dear Readers. I do hope this makes up for it.

_so._  
_having no need to speak_  
_You sent Your tongue_  
_splintered into angels._  
_even i,_  
_with my little piece of it_  
_have said too much._  
_to ask You to explain_  
_is to deny You._  
_before the word_  
_You were._  
_You kiss my brother mouth._  
_the rest is silence._ \- Lucille Clifton, _'Brothers'_

 

 

"I did," Jensen said, and Kane's face crumpled into a kind of horror, his blue eyes going wide. Jensen made a frustrated sort of sound, hissing between his teeth. " I didn't _stay_ dead," he said, and Jared snorted in nervous amusement. Five pairs of eyes flicked to him and then away, dismissing him, and Jared felt that go through Jensen, felt him withdraw almost completely, a sudden shock of cold. And then he felt him creep back, shame, in the 'net, and sorrow, and a kind of desperate need that slipped around the edges, no matter that Jensen kept trying to push it down. Jared ground his teeth together, hating that. _Angry_ , because fucking hell, Jensen shouldn't feel like _that_....

Jared reached out and took Jensen's hand again, thumb rubbing distractedly along Jensen's knuckles. Deliberately, he loosened his jaw, inching a little closer, so the heat of their bodies mingled a little in the chill vault of the dock. Physical closeness, in the hopes of shoring up the 'net, and Jared saw _that_ go through the Angels, a kind of outrage and then...panic? Kane looked like Jensen looked, when he realized his 'net - his connection - was gone, and Jared felt a moment's pity for him. For them all. But he still squeezed Jensen's hand.

"You're...not _here_ ," Kane said, and Jared felt that, too, the longing and the new-old twist of grief, dull-edged, scraping. "Can't suss you, Quemuel," Kane said, and his voice was rough, shaky.

"I know. I thought if...the 'net-" Jensen rubbed his hand back through his shorn hair, scrubbing a little, dislodging the lap of scarf he'd hooded himself in even more, pushing it down the back of his neck. He gestured to Jared and Jared felt Jensen's frustration; so used to the 'net, so used to sending a torrent of information in seconds that he was lost, now. Trying to find the right words was reducing him to tongue-tied stammering. "We have a 'net. Us two," Jensen said, and the five pair of eyes shifted to Jared's face again, all of them intense, assessing. 

"But Angels don't live," one of the women said. _Sinna_ , who had liquid black eyes in a flat oval of a face, and lashes of startling length.

"I know. I was on the _Nightingale_ , and then Reveille, and then...hu-hospital, a place-" Jared caught the flurry of information; the rows of beds and the cold, moulded-plastic floors. The chemical reek of generation gel, the frigid isolation of the rescue tube, the hot-cold slice of steel through flesh as Jensen tried again, again...the drowsy leadenness of near-death, blood slippery between Jensen's fingers. Jared shuddered out of that, breathing hard, and Jensen shot a feathery stroke of warmth through the 'net. Apology.

"Psych ward. Lock down," Jensen said finally, his rough voice so low it was almost inaudible, and Jared saw anger flare in Malik's expression, in Five's. Something else in Jinx's thin-lipped stare; familiarity. "Patched me up, shipped me out. Out here. No 'net, just...junkie on a come-down, every fuckin' day. No down-pack."

"But you're clean," Malik rumbled. "Aren't you? Ready-steady?"

"Ready-steady," Jensen echoed, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "I wasn't…. Kill-switch, but it kept rebooting and…then I got here and this-" Jensen's hand went out, an indescribable gesture, and the look he turned on Jared was agonized, frustration in the 'net like acid and sand. 

Jared squeezed his fingers again and looked at the Angels, seeing confusion and frustration that echoed Jensen's. "We figured a way to fix it. _Advocatus Diaboli_. Our Doc - she healed it, his 'net. She had to kill it first; it was crippled and dying and it was taking Jensen with it, like they wanted it to do. I think- They were surprised he was still alive. They were watching him here, monitoring…. They wanted to see."

"Lab rat," Kane said, his voice all but dripping with loathing, and " _Suits_ ", Sinna hissed. Jared nodded. 

"Yeah. He was...dying. Kill switch, cancers, addiction…. But our Doc, she figured out his 'net was trying to reboot, just, with all the shit the Company put in there, it couldn't. So she had to kill it, had to scour it down to the basic components, stuff so deep...it's part of all of us, grown in...it takes over."

Jensen's hand in Jared's was cold, now, and Jared squeezed a little harder, rubbed at rough knuckles, pushing out _calm_ , pushing out _okay, all good, I'm here_. 

"So that fixed it?" Jinx asked, and Jared lifted a shoulder. 

"Not really? He fixed himself. His 'net did. It was already...different; already mutated, somehow. It should never have been able to reset after the kill-switch crap shut it down, but it did. Every time. Once Doc cleared all that stuff out, it was...ready. It _regrew itself_. It fixed itself, and it went right back to what it...what the Company made it, but it was clean this time. _Is_ clean. He's his own, now. No kill-switch and no cancers and no drugs, nothing. He's _free_ of them. We both are."

"You're no Angel," Kane objected, not sneering, just positive, and Jared huffed out a little laugh.

"Hell, no. I'd never make it. I'm Company indenture. Was. Kin-Gin survivor," he added, but Kane only looked bewildered, same as Malik, same as Sinna and Jinx. Only Five's eyes went wide in recognition, blue, shaved brows going up. 

"Lottery," she said, and Jared could _see_ whatever she knew hitting the 'net, filtering to the others, as their expressions mirrored the information flow and they all took a moment to stare at Jared, sizing him up.

"Fixed you, too?"

"Yeah. With Jensen's....like a vaccine. Doc made a vaccine, from Jensen. Killed the Company shit. Now my 'net's clean as his."

"That's why," Kane said, as if answering a question, and Jensen nodded. 

"Mirror. Or echo, or...fuck if I know. I'm him, he's me, it works." 

"Glad for it," Kane murmured, and Jensen's hand clenched on Jared's and then slid free. He took a step or two forward, right up close to Kane. Kneeling, the Angel was level with Jensen, and Jensen cupped a hand around the back of Kane's neck and leaned in, forehead to forehead. A moment of stillness, and Jared could _feel_ Jensen reaching out again, pushing, searching, trying to find some flicker of Kane - of his Angels - anywhere.

"Miss you," Jensen murmured back, and the others moved, just a little, a swaying _in_ , all their attention fixed on Jensen for a moment, an internal yearning and reaching that was almost tangible. And then a klaxon blared, deafening, and the Angels - Jensen included - startled hard, the five from the ship coming up off their resting stance, face plates snapping shut, weapons manifesting from the armor, rifles building out from extended arms and hands.

Jensen was half-crouched beside Jared, his gaze skimming over the room, his own hand out and down, holding that palm knife at ready. _Sit-rep_ through the 'net, cataloguing the accesses again, the lines of sight, the places where a sniper could be concealed, the best place to put their backs if a squad of Security burst in.

Jared was left standing there, feeling exposed and panicky and _useless_ , until Jensen reached out and twisted his fist into Jared's jacket, yanking him forward and propelling him into the midst of the Angels, who stepped aside for him. For _Jensen_.

 _No armor, no weapons, gotta stay low, stay tight, keep **close** , stay with me, trust my Angels, don't fucking panic_. Words and images and emotions; impulse and order; military jargon cutting into the flow of Jensen's desires. Jared didn't fight him, just nodded and put his hand on Jensen's back, between his shoulderblades, signalling his presence, letting Jensen know he was there, he was safe. Less distracting than a constant ping in the 'net, though Jared was feeling pretty damn twitchy despite Jensen's steadiness, despite the wall of armor around them neither of them could see over.

The lift was rumbling, moving out there in the ship - to or from, Jared had no idea - and the Angels turned as one to face it, fanning out, the bigger ones _Gibborim, bunker-busters, heavy armor, take the brunt_ forward, the weapons that manifested from the armor supplemented with packs of some kind, power cells or something, _Jensen_ didn't know, he just knew _take you out, rock and hard place_. Kane was in front of Jensen and Jared both, _Naphaim_ , his rifle different looking, sleeker. _Fire_ , Jensen thought, pure satisfaction, and Jared saw some kind of plasma discharge, some kind of cauterizing, razor-like effect that would breach the walls of the dock, if Kane missed. Hell, if _any_ of them did.

 _They know. Not the first time…._ Jensen showed Jared a brief, hectic flurry of images, of Angels taking some other dock, some other station, some other where. They knew what they were doing. Jared still wanted to duck and run, to find a pressure-lock to get on the other side of, instincts drilled into him from years of living on ships and stations. Jinx and Five were moving sideways, the furthest back, finding toeholds and handholds on the walls and girders, moving _up_ , gaining height and advantage. _Snipers, watchers, sappers_ , those were _Enim_ , that was _me, that's me, squad leader, we see the far-view, we make the call_.

Jensen shut the 'net down hard, and Jared glanced over at him. He watched Jensen just breathe, crushing overwhelming emotions down, putting them away, focusing. And even as Jared pushed tentatively, Jensen opened the 'net back up, and this time it was cool and quiet and nearly silent, just information, just numbers, ticking over problems and solutions, plotting trajectories and contingencies.

And then the lift opened again, this time spilling out more armored figures, and some _not_ in armor, coughing, staggering, smoke and blood everywhere, and Jared felt his chest go tight, his heart leap and pound. Jinx was talking through suit-com, his voice rapping out orders, and the dazed, staggering people were stumbling away from the lift and across the dock. The lift shut behind them and rumbled away, vibrations felt more than heard, and Jared stared at the bedraggled people it had let out.

"What is it, what is it, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ -" Jensen was breathing fast, his body rock-hard with tension under Jared's palm. Kane's com clicked on with a little hiss and they could both hear it, whatever communications was going on between the soldiers and the ship.

_"...let them pass. We told them they'd be put off the ship, safe passage."_

_"Where are the **Nephilim**? Where's the LT, damnit? **Report** -"_

_"LT's gone. **Nephilim** are staying. So are **Dominions** , **Archangels** , **Seraphim** , most of **Ophanim** , some of **Demons**...crew's coming out to you, we got about half the drop-ship crews, a couple LT's, four other Sergeants."_

"Morrigan," Jensen murmured, and the emotions that cascaded through the 'net were complicated at best. At worst, they made Jared flinch, anger and disgust and regret flooding him in rapid succession. Jensen gave Jared a quick, hard look over his shoulder.

"Don't."

"Can't help it. What the fuck is going on?" The first of the people - men and women - were walking past, now, giving Kane a wide berth, staring confused at Jensen and Jared. Heading for the back of the dock, for the access there and Jared felt a sudden shiver of cold. "They- they'll get Security, they can't just go-"

"Got it. We got dock control. Just getting them out of the way."

"Getting _who_ out of the way? Jensen, who are these people? What's going on?"

"Shut it fucking down," Kane snapped, distorted through the com, and Jared opened his mouth to snap back but then the lift was clashing open again, disgorging more people, some on stretchers, some in armor that had no tell-tales at all. Lights all out, the armors themselves moved stiffly, faceplates open wide, showing shocked or furious or simply _void_ expressions on faces eerily similar. Pale, or that strange, ashen pallor that dark-skinned people got, in space. Hairless, tattooed, some with bruises or smears of blood.

" _Jensen_ ," Jared said, furious and panicked and utterly confused, and Jensen clenched his jaw tight (twinge of it in the 'net', headache starting), and reached up, touching one hand to Kane's armor. 

"Gimme com, Kane, fucking hell, need to talk to the Morrigan."

"Yeah," Kane said, distracted, and then a small panel petaled open in the shoulder of his suit, exposing an ear bud with a short, hair-fine filament of antenna, which Jensen lifted free. He jerked out the one the Jo's had given him and passed it back to Jared, who tucked it into his own ear, hearing one of the Jo's saying something, his voice exasperated and tight with stress.

 _"...what in hell's going on? Stat-Con's going nuts, Jensen, what the **fuck** -?_"

"Jo, Jo, it's me, it's Jared. Listen, something big's happening here, I don't know, I- Jensen's finding out. We're okay, just - sit tight. I'll tell you soon's I know."

 _"Fuck's sake, Jared,"_ Jo One said, but the com shut down to standby, a barely audible hum, and Jared watched as Jensen pushed the little bud in more firmly and then just _listened_ , his head cocked to one side, his gaze still tracking every person, every movement, every twitch. The 'net was on a sort of stand-by, too, and Jared watched the stretcher-bearers settle their wounded cargo on the dock, watched the darkened suits clump past, no grace in them, maybe on stand-by, too.

Jensen said something, jargon so impenetrable, Jared had no idea what it meant. Whoever was on com - Morrigan, the Gunny, Sergeant Morgan - seemed to say something back, and Jensen questioned him once, twice, a third time. Then he turned to look at Jared, and Jared felt the 'net gape wide, and information flooded in.

 

 _How is this possible, how, how, how…._ Jensen's thoughts were chaos, nothing seemed _real_ , and the delirious, giddy flush of seeing his Angels was being steadily eroded by confusion and bewilderment and _anger_. Anger at Morgan. _Jeff_. Anger at the Company, anger at the Angels who were taking the wrong damn _side_....

The _Tiamat_ was out of Company hands and out of their control, the bridge manned by drop-ship pilots and Angels alike, the corridors scoured by weapons fire and blood. Morgan was _Diaboli_ , Morgan always had been, and Jensen getting mustered out and _living_ was his catalyst. 

He'd maneuvered to have the _Tiamat_ be the ship to take the call; had gathered in the crew and Sergeants and Lieutenants who would listen and told them his plan. He'd told the _Nephilim_ , and, to a soldier, they'd agreed. And they had taken the _Tiamat_. First just quarters, section by section, gathering up those Angels that wanted out, wanted free.

And some hadn't wanted it; too scared or too broken or too gone. And some had fought _back_ , like the _Powers_ , like the _Cherubim_. They were mostly gone. Bits and pieces of _Thrones_ , _Principalities_ and _Virtues_ had come over, as well. Bits and pieces had not, and were either dead in state in quarters, or were here on the dock, in their armor but locked out, in stand-down mode used for repair, for transfers. They couldn't access their weapons, and they couldn't fight back. All of _Grigori_ were gone, dead, and Jensen was fiercely pleased at his Angels for having taken them out...and horrified. Devastated.

_Fighting our own, why are we doing that? We should all want...to be free, why don't they-?_

But he knew. He knew that some had nothing, had _come_ from nothing. Had only ever known family as an ArchANGEL. Had only ever fought, and bled, and lived, and loved in the Company barracks, by Company rules. Had no other way of thinking, had no other thing to _be_ , and were terrified. Jensen...might just have fought, if Morgan had told him what he was. What they were going to be. He might have fought to stay….

Jensen shook his head, hard, getting rid of that thought, and focused on feeding the last of Morgan's information through to Jared, knowing he was telling the Jo boys. Knowing they would have their own questions. Unless they'd known all along….

Jensen felt Jared's shock and dismay at that thought - at the anger that followed it - and he could hear him rapidly questioning whatever Jo he was talking to. Jensen dismissed that, too, and instead concentrated on the flow of Angels and crew that were coming out of the ship, maybe one hundred already, and more still coming, crowding the dock. Five hundred all told on _Tiamat_ , Angels and crew together, and less than half were heading for the deck, under guard, under guns. _Demons_ and _Archangels_ filtered out with the others, taking up guard positions, securing access points, faceless in their armors but, oh, so familiar, and Jensen wanted his own Angels there. Wanted to see them all. But there was something in what Morgan was saying; names, the jargon of command, someone missing….

"Where's Kee?" he asked, interrupting Morgan, and there was a long moment of humming silence.

_"Stick base out in the Sisters. She got caught in one of their webs. Fried her suit."_

"Shit," Jensen muttered, sick at the thought. A suit going down like that… Well, Kee had died with her armor, squad leader going out and protecting her own, and that was about all you could ask. "She been replaced?"

_No. We were gonna hit up Reveille, do a little R &R and get her replacement, but we got the call at Turn Around and headed here instead."_

"Was…? You get a replacement for me, too?"

Another long pause. _"No. Sinna was stepping up. Thought we'd just move her, get a new **Gibborum** instead. She's a good Corporal."_

So his Angels were only one down, not two. No new and untried face in quarters, no questionable loyalties. Safer, that way, _known_ , and Jensen felt a moment's relief. Relief that was swamped with grief, mourning for Kee, who out of all them could _sing_ ; strange old songs nobody else had ever heard, about ships and seas and brave-heart crews. Kane, catching some of what Morgan said, shared a long look with Jensen, and once again, Jensen ached for a 'net broader than just he and Jared.

_Not your fault, you're good, don't be mad, I just…._

"It's okay," Jared said, and Jensen could feel him reeling, still, from the data-flow; from knowing so much in such a short amount of time, and _knowing_ it. It was something to get used to, that was sure. Jensen could barely remember a time when the 'net had been so new and different, almost frightening in its intimacy. Seeing it echoed through Jared was...strange. 

"Okay, okay...how many more? What kind of timeline we on, Gunny? Station's not gonna be happy, this many troops stranded here.”

_"We're on a push. Got...five more loads to come out, then we got to seal up and go. **Nebuchadnezzar** is a two-jump from Axis and we gotta hit Tripoli and get on to ports unknown."_

"What about the Jo boys?" Jared asked, catching some of that, and Jensen thought fast. 

"We can get them. Morgan, listen, gotta pick-up, down at station-nadir-"

_"The Jos, yeah. I was...made aware of them. We can grab them if they got vac-suits. Tell 'em suit up; tell them be ready, we won't have much time."_

"Got it, I'm on it," Jared murmured, and Jensen felt a burst of pride and giddy affection for Jared, for how damn _fast_ he was, how steady; just learning, going, in step with Jensen in a way Jensen hadn't anticipated or hoped for, and Jensen turned to him with a grin, watching as his emotions hit the 'net and startled Jared into silence, stuttering to a halt mid-sentence. And he was… _beautiful_ , standing there, his hair curling around his jaw and his hazel-green eyes all but glowing, reflecting the lights all around. A sudden grin mirrored Jensen's, Jared’s dimples showing.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Jensen said, and he leaned in and kissed Jared, hard. Felt shock and surprise, felt _oh!_ and _yes_ and _more_ , and Jensen got his fingers up into that silk-shiny hair and tugged, lightly.

"Later. Gotta board. Gotta get the Jos. and then-"

"Go, go, go," Jared breathed, against Jensen's mouth, through the 'net. _Go, go, go._

 

Then it _was_ go - getting the last of the hold-outs off the ship, getting the station notified of casualties and ArchANGELS who were going to need not only temporary quarters but Company 'assistance' (drugs, and lots of them) sooner rather than later.

Jared clung to a hand-hold in the lift, watching as the doors slid shut on the docks, on the wounded and dying and grounded. The lift jolted and then _moved_ , fast enough to make him feel it, a solid push. Beside him, Jensen hung on, grinning fiercely, his presence in the 'net somehow like light, just...a _glowing_ Jared could almost see. Warmth and affection, fierce protection, excitement, absolutely. The armors surrounding them hissed and whirred softly as the lift oriented and settled, and Jared could feel them pulled again, slightly different, station and ship rotation the same, but down was _here_ , on the ship, and they had to adjust a little, watching the arrows.

Then the lift stopped with another jolting crash, and the doors slid wide, and there were more suits waiting, and a last contingent of prisoners. Information pinged through the 'net with force as Jensen recognized the ship’s Captain, a tall, white-haired woman standing with deceptive ease in a group of similar men and women, all older, some scarred, in the blue and gray uniform of their profession. Someone was on a stretcher beside them - _Major Ferris_ from Jensen - close-cropped blonde-brown hair, a thick bandage on her shoulder and upper chest, a little compact array of monitors and machinery tethered to her. 

Her pain-clouded gaze caught Jared's, and then slid over to Jensen, and she lifted her head a half-inch from the stretcher.

"Good luck, Angel," she said, slurring a little as a machine beeped alarmingly. Jensen stiffened into something like attention and then they were both moving, the Captain and crew in, Jared and Jensen and the _Nephilim_ out, and the lift door shut with a resounding clang. They marched down a corridor of grey, grey, and more grey, creased with carbon-scoring from weapons’ fire, a panel hanging askew, showing wires that were being feverishly worked on by a crewman in coveralls and fire-suppressant foam.

Someone's voice _**Virtues** LT, ugly damn fucker, big as a house_ was snapping directions and orders and info over the PA, all of it incomprehensible gibberish to Jared, even with Jensen filtering it. Something about imminent push, strap in, lock down, no time.

"Listen, it's just-" _moving fast, Jos, gotta go, strap in, safety_ "-here, auxiliary monitoring, we just gotta get secured to move, we'll sort out later. We're gonna-" _illegal, needle-and-eye, Axis and us and traffic_ "-uncouple and drop to get the Jos, snake 'em out of the null zone down there and then go for Tripoli-" _burn across incoming vectors, chance of collision, combat maneuver, fuck are you gonna?_ "-Jared? You gonna be sick?"

"Huh?" Jared snapped back into focus, glancing around and seeing they were in some kind of room now, with monitors and panels and padded, movable benches, safety webbing and harnesses hanging everywhere. He shoved the images and sensations Jensen was pushing at him to the back of his brain out of sheer desperation. 

The ship, the whole, huge fucking _ship_ , was going to perform some kind of unbelievably dangerous and frankly _insane_ roll-and-dive that Jared _might_ have considered doing in a skimmer in a low-traffic zone, in a dead time. Some kind of game of dodge and dart around ships static and moving, without Station Control's guidance or knowledge. So they could do a flying swoop, and scoop up the Jos, who would be drifting in evac suits somewhere between the old emergency evacuation docks and the rest of the fucking _system_....

The whole idea made Jared's stomach heave just to think of it, and he gritted his teeth and turned to Jensen with the most pleasant look he could force onto his face. "Jensen. Fuck knows you're trying to help, but, _please_ , stop...showing me- _Fuck_ , I think I _am_ -"

"No, you're not," somebody said. It was Sinna, faceplate folded back, her voice coolly amused. The gauntlet on her left hand opened and her real hand, slim-fingered and pale, plucked something from behind a panel on the chest of her suit. She reached out, too quick for Jared to dodge, and he felt a little sting in his throat and jerked away.

"Hey! What the _fuck_!" 

"Keep you from heaving. Never seen a mess 'til you seen somebody lose it in zero-g. Tell him, _Quemuel_." She moved off, hiss and click, to lock her suit into place with the rest, while Jensen grabbed Jared and bodily shoved him down, yanking webbing across him and belting him in.

"She's right, fucking mess. That was just-" _antiemetic, standard, low dose_ " -to keep you level. C'mon, Jared, it's fine." Jensen settled himself, webbing clicking into place, and Jared twisted for a moment in the tangle of harness and then just slumped back, sighing.

"Could have asked."

 _Amusement_ , in the 'net, Jensen grinning at him. _Spooked greenie_ and _surprise works better_. A klaxon gave off a nerve-rattling blast, and the Angels shouted. Jensen did too, a whooping howl, excitement coursing through the 'net, adrenaline in Jared kicking up to meet what Jensen was sending out as the whole ship _shivered_ and then hummed, bone-deep and bass-heavy.

 _Engines, ship's engines, here we go, go_ "Ready-steady?" Jensen yelled, and was met with a roar from the _Nephilim_ around them, Kane and Malik, Sinna and Jinx and Five, three others, all of them shouting through com, oriented on _Jensen_ , who looked….

In his element. He looked _happy_ , at long last, in a way that was thoroughly uncomplicated. _Home home home_ was sparking the 'net, sheer giddy joy, and Jared gripped the padding and the harness tight in his fingers and braced his feet on the deck and just...gave in.

"Ready-steady, go go go!"


	16. Chapter 16

_Feel her bow rise free of Mother Sea_  
 _In a sunburst cloud of spray_  
 _That stings the cheek while the rigging will speak_  
 _Of sea-miles gone away_  
 _She is always best under full press_  
 _Hard over as she'll lay_ \- Stan Rogers, _'Bluenose'_

 

 

Jared was sure that, to his dying day, he would remember the way the _Tiamat_ had moved. How gravity had crushed them back against padded walls or dragged them feet-first, his heart laboring to keep his blood flowing where it needed to go, his lungs wheezing. How gravity had suddenly _stopped_ doing anything at all, and Jared was sure his whole body was going to fly apart. The drone of the engines coming through the hull, through the air; the very fabric of the ship itself groaning and creaking and thumping. The _Nephilim_ shouting, not in terror or anger, but for the sheer joy of it. _Yell, scream, shout, tell the 'verse you're alive, fight it, win!_ pouring through him from Jensen, who was shouting as loud as the Angels, grinning and triumphant when the hum suddenly changed pitch and the wild maneuvers settled into a steady push. 

"Got 'em! Got the Jos," Jensen said, touching his ear, the com unit he still wore, and Jared grinned, his hands shaking, knotted in the webbing.

There was a wild scramble of crew and carts and supplies, then, everyone gulping down squeeze-packs of some liquid that, to Jared, tasted mostly like salt, sugar and fake-lime, disgusting, but somehow satisfying. Some crewman - sweat rings on his coveralls, and a new bandage on his cheekbone - passed out extra in little mesh bags that clipped to the safety webbing, and then handed out wrapped syrettes to Jared and Jensen, marked all over with warnings and medical jargon.

_Jump pack_ , from Jensen, and Jared was nodding, looking it over. Familiar, at least, from his own time with the Company. Drugs for jump, since most people couldn't - shouldn't - go through it awake and aware, though the crew came closer than most, having to at least marginally monitor the ship as they went.

But Jared, and Jensen, the Angels and most of the crew would ride it out in the warm dark of the drug, until the _Tiamat_ decelerated into the field at Tripoli, becoming _real_ again, after the ghost-ride of the Between, the nether world of jump. Meeting up with the _Diomedes_ , with Doc and Raleigh and all the other _Diaboli_ who'd gone on before, they’d leave Axis, and the displaced Angels, and everything else...months in the past.

_Over jump_ , Jensen offered, and Jared looked over at him, working on securing the jump-pack in a pocket of his jacket. 

"What?"

"We're going to over-jump them. _Tiamat's_ a lot faster than that merc ship. We'll beat 'em in by a week, probably."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jared said, and Jensen laughed. Kane did too, faceplate up and the armor hissing as he did some kind of diagnostic test, various plates and foils lifting and settling, ruffled feathers. 

"She goes, Jared. She goes like nothin' you've seen."

" _Under full press, hard over as she lays,_ " Jensen said, a low, soft sing-song to his voice, and in the 'net an image of _Kee_ , singing as the jump-pack took hold, a song old as Earth, ships and the sea none of them had ever seen, incomprehensible but full of excitement. _We go, we fly, into the dark, ride the bubble, skip the line-_

"Bluenose," Kane whispered, and _something_ shivered through the 'net, making Jared's heart ache and his eyes sting, even as he struggled to understand.

"Twenty minutes 'til skip-out; hit the head now if you need it," the crewman said, giving the cart a shove out the door, past two figures who stumbled in. The Jos, looking rumpled and sweaty and a bit green, hung with their gear and with Jared and Jensen's, too.

Jared took in a long, shaky breath and rubbed roughly at his eye; blinked and grinned and started to pop the buckles on the safety web. "Damn, good to see you! Glad you made it," he said, reaching for _normal_ , intent on finding the head, getting a sweater out of his bag, getting comfortable for the long jump. Tucked away for later was the strange, shivery image of sunlight on ( _water ice steel_ ) and vast, pearly sails open against the endless, star-spangled black of space.

 

They came out of the Between like surfacing from underwater: a sudden rush of weightlessness, and then the tug of gravity, a gasp, a groan, a sigh. Jared thrashed for a moment in the webbing, and Jensen leaned over to catch a flailing hand, squeezing tight. Jensen pushed his own awareness onto Jared, translating the running monologue from com, identifying the noises, the smells, the aches in their bodies. He smoothed the tangled mess of emotion and impulse that was the jump-pack's doing; that decaying surge of adrenalin and endorphins and opiates, of the drugs just for jump that Jensen couldn't name, though he knew what they did: flattened you out, made you so _open_...you had to focus down and orient yourself.

Jensen felt Jared's hand flinch in his as he poured out instructions, explanations. _Sorry, sorry, sorry,_ Jensen thought, and Jared just breathed next to him, eyes blinking slow and a little uneven, his heart thumping, pinging through the 'net, his joints aching. _All clear and we'll get cleaned up, eat, they'll make something hot, feels good, hot water, clean clothes, safe, safe…._

He pushed out memories of post-jump in the Angel quarters, everyone warm and steamed clean in the showers, fed and sleepy and _close_ , curling together in bunks and on the couches, touching, talking, feeling; reconnecting. Unless they had to come out ready, armored and bouncing and _up up up_ , go-packs with the jump-packs, almost awake, almost aware as the ship skipped out of time and space and _flew_.

"Jen...Jensen," Jared murmured, rush of _dizzy, sick_ , and Jensen throttled the 'net down again. 

"Get a drink, Jared, can you? Reach over and _make you feel better, you can do it_ get a drink," Jensen said, showing him in the 'net, careful this time, just a trickle of impulse and images. The drink would help with the nausea, help with the shaky-cold feeling, the disorientation. Jensen could feel Jared putting everything into that, in the twist and reach after the net bag, dragging out one of the squeeze-packs, giving the straw that hard little tug to make it pop the seal. Jensen could _feel_ it when the liquid hit Jared's mouth and he groped for his own drink, fumbling a little, as shaky as Jared was. They both drifted, drinking in long sips the fake-lime and then a fake-lemon, but no fake-orange because _Tiamat_ crew knew just how much most of the Angels hated it. Something in the chemical mix that was supposed to achieve 'orange' mostly just tasted like poison.

"Fuck," Jared muttered, and stuffed the last empty container back into the bag. He took a long, deep breath and looked around, blinking. More clear, in the 'net, and better color, too. The Angels over in the armor moved a little, faint hisses and creaks of joints and webbing, getting their post-jump fix via the port in their spines, umbilicals to the suits, standard procedure. Mainline straight to the blood, so they didn't need the drinks but...everyone had one, just the same. Give you something to do, something to focus on, a way to wake up and _function_ when sometimes that was the hardest thing in the 'verse.

Kane was looking at Jensen, a little frown on his face, and Jensen cocked his head, waiting. "You good? I can't… You both all-go?"

"I'm good," Jensen said, "we're good," pushing his fingers back through his hair, grimacing at the lank feel of it. Strands of it came loose in his hand, and he made a face, twisting the hairs up into a little ball and shoving it down into a pocket. Didn't want that just drifting around.

"Next time...next time, we...we'll figure something. So you can hear the story," Kane said softly, and Jensen smiled, though a sudden, low ache flared in his chest.

"What story?" Jared asked, quiet, and Jensen closed his eyes, conjuring it for Jared; conjuring Kee and her melancholy songs, remembering Sinna telling them a story before jump. Telling them about the first Angels, centuries ago: Captain and the Soldier, close as any ANGELS could be. The first extra-humans, they'd lived in the cold of never-where, something like jump before jump had ever existed, and woke up to fight, to protect. Almost a joke, but not quite; figures of legend, a tether to history, just like the gladators and the Komanshee, Devil Dogs and Kam-kaze, Samurai and fighting Irish, the Martian Firsts, the Jump-light Brigade, the Second Sacred of Thebes... Angels were all those and more, all of history tangled up in their making, and first Sinna, then others, as they learned, would tell their stories in the dim warmth of the barracks, before the Between and the long cold. Stories to keep them warm, stories to make them dream sweet.

Jensen took a hard breath, lost in remembering, finally blinking out of it to see Jared looking at him, tears standing in his eyes, making them luminous and huge, his lashes wet, sticking together. Something fragile and wanting and _hurt_ throbbed in the 'net. "Jared?"

"Is that..that's you...all of you," Jared said, glance flicking to Kane and the rest, and Jensen shook his head.

"That's _us_ , Jared. You and me, all of us." _Angels, our history, our stories, our ghosts_ "I'll teach you."

Jared sniffed, scrabbled out a wad of dingy cloth from a pocket and scrubbed at his nose. Then he grinned shakily over at Jensen, the feeling in the 'net changing, the hurt fading, replaced with _warmth_ , and awe, and _love_ , and Jensen grinned back.

" _Brace for de-cel_ ," ship-com said, and the _Tiamat_ shivered, half into the Between and back again, shedding velocity, jump engines winding down, all that energy dissipating in shuddery pulses. Jared's hand found Jensen's and just held on.

 

The corridors of the _Tiamat_ were scored with streaks of carbon where laser fire and projectiles had done damage; were smirched with smoke and blood and other things that made Jensen flinch, that made him angry and sad and horrified, all at the same time. A haze of burnt plastics hung in the air and the overloaded atmo systems worked to flush it clean, producing little distressed whines from time to time, as the fans and systems went triple-time. To distract himself, Jensen kept up a steady flow of information for Jared as they walked on shaky knees down the grey-painted corridors, on grey tile, endless plex panels and muted light-tracks showing the way to the command deck, quarters, drop-ship hangar, the mess…. It was bewildering, to Jared; all of it an ugly sameness that Jensen had long-since learned to ignore. 

_Crew decks, Suit decks,_ Jensen dismissed, anxious and brimming over with anticipation, knowing where they were headed. _Angel quarters here, down here, our place, our space, no officers, no Suits.…_ As they walked, the soldiers and crew mopping up stood aside, watching as the _Nephilim_ marched through, armored feet clanking and thumping, the suits themselves humming as hydraulics and oil-gears synched and flexed and hissed. Jensen and Jared were tiny in their midst, but noticed, just the same. They went through an open pressure-seal door and turned hard left, and ahead of them was an archway, and a sort of blue-green dimness, and _color_....

"What is-? What is that? Jensen, what-?" _Shock, astonishment, awe_ in the 'net, and Jensen grinned hard, seeing quarters all over again, for the first time, through Jared's eyes. On the walls, lines and swirls, explosions of pale color, names and words and something Jared puzzled over, the picture-words so many illiterate Angels used, refined and perfected over decades. It covered every inch of the walls, of the ceiling, even looped over some of the floor. It climbed and crawled and twisted around everything, and Jared was remembering, a stuttering flash, Jensen's bolt-hole down in the Axis Mundi, the old and new graffiti there.

_This is us, this is **Nephilim** ,_ Jensen thought, showing Jared the names, the shapes that meant _Us, Angels, safe, home, welcome…._.

"It's so bright," Jared said, though it wasn't, exactly. It was all just more _vivid_ than it had been, back in the rest of the ship. The etchings and engravings on the armor all around them took on extra dimension and the colors of the armor themselves seemed to glow, deeper and more saturated. 

_The light, less of some, more of others, better for our eyes. Five knows, Malik, I don't remember, this is how we see, in the armor._ All in a jumble of images and contrasts, bits of conversation from down-times, and Jared put a hand carefully, carefully, up to a five-pointed, red star on the wall, that was outlined in fractured rays.

"It's… _amazing, beautiful_."

The Angels were filing through another door, and Jensen and Jared leaned there, watching as umbilicals and cables depended down from the overhead and the armor was hooked up, and then unseamed, and the pale-glowing bodies of Angels slid free. They moved with purpose, standing in clumps around shower nozzles, washing away the gel _saline, helps conduct, helps you talk to your suit_ , slim, muscled bodies given an almost unreal aura in the overheads to Jared's eyes. They had nearly three hours of de-cel, crossing the elliptic to Tripoli, going slow, as stealthy as a carrier the size of the _Tiamat_ could be which was, surprisingly, damn near invisible. So they had time, to clean up and eat, to relax and figure out their next moves. To just...be, for a little bit, while the _Tiamat_ hurtled through the dark, deadly shadow.

Watching the Angels, Jensen couldn't help letting slip the visceral memory of _himself_ sliding free of his armor, chilled and slick; scrubbing down, warming up, anticipation, longing. Of hands on his skin, and skin under his own hands, soap-slick and warming, touching. Confirming and affirming that they were each whole, safe, _there_.

He was trying not to overload Jared with it, but Jared was crowding up close behind Jensen. One hand pressed into Jensen's waist, curling into the layers of clothing there, shivering, bone-deep tremors that Jensen could feel through the 'net, could hear in the uneven huff of his breathing. "Jared?"

"C-can we...if you want, we can-" _Cold, cold, want to warm up, clean up, want to **know** , need to feel…._ "They would...they want you, don't they? With them. And it would be okay, I w-would be-"

Jared was _embarrassed_ , in the 'net. Embarrassed and curious and...wanting. Not sex, not anything sleazy, just… _Overwhelmed, lost, cold_ , and Jensen understood that. He _knew_ that, down to his bones.

"Yeah, okay." _We can, family, Angels, they're us, we're them, it's all right_. "C'mon," Jensen said, and got Jared's hand in his, squeezing a little and tugging him forward, past the ranked armors, up to the edge of the showers. Stripping off, boots to shirts, showing Jared where to put their clothes, laundry chute right _there_ , they'd get them back. Moving into the steam and spray and _warmth_ , Kane making space, and Malik, Five and Sous grinning over from their spots at the next cluster of shower heads, both women giving Jared a slow and lascivious once-over that made Jensen laugh out loud, head back, just so fucking _happy_ to be back, to be there. He looked over at Jared, not sure what to expect, but Jared was soaping himself unselfconsciously, face turned up to the water.

Hell, Jared was _showing off_ , Jensen could feel it, preening just a little, flexing a thigh and bending to scrub at his knee, showing off a flank and ass that, Jensen had to admit, was damn fine. Jared looked up at Jensen, water beaded on his long, long lashes, sending him images, a flurry of memories, only a little jerky, a little confused. Getting better - getting _good_ at that. 

_Been here, done it, not ashamed_ , Jared thought, showing Jensen Company barracks and schools, orphans riding the physical hell of newly implanted ports and the first, chaotic growth spurts of nascent ANGEL systems. Alone and scared and hurting and desperately - furiously - longing for family, and connection. Taking whatever physical comfort they could, crowding into couches and bunks together, touching skin on skin. Although the Company tended to keep the sexes apart, to keep them all a little dosed on this or that, so hormones and puberty didn't run amok in their carefully stilted, regimented lives. 

Jared's unexpected ease, his happy desire to be there, to be _part of_ , felt so good, to Jensen, he just moved, stepping right into Jared's space and pulling him close, one hand up in all that ridiculous hair, the other on his hip. He Kissed Jared for all he was worth, while the Angels around them erupted into whooping cheers and whistles, catcalls and laughter.

_Love_ and _family_ and _yes_. Jared was laughing against Jensen's mouth, looking over Jensen's shoulder at the Angels, taking their suggestions and frankly filthy innuendo all in his stride, not caring at all when Kane crowded into him, swiping at him with a towel, or when Five patted his ass on her way past. 

In quarters, when they were clean and warm and dressed, Jared sitting cross-legged on a padded bench, dressed like everyone else in the soft, navy-blue down-time uniform of the Angels…. Jensen wanted to laugh, and to cry. Jared looked… _right_. He looked like one of them. Sous was fiddling with his hair, and Malik was too, running their fingers through and through it, braiding and twisting and just _playing_ , a sensation Jensen could feel in the 'net, tingly and good.

Kane was doing the same to Jensen, just a slow rub of his fingers through the shorter hairs of Jensen's nape, and the slightly longer spikes on the crown. Jensen had never seen Kane other than he was, shaved smooth and slick for the armor, and Kane was all but purring, eyes half-shut as he ran his fingers through and through and through the drying strands.

"Gonna rub it all off," Jensen murmured, half asleep, warm and comfortable, tucked up against Jinx and Perin and Kane, his hand on Jared's knee, blinking slower and slower. Jared was _content happy warm_ , belly full of the soup the mess had sent up, and the little savory pancakes smeared with tart cheese. 

"Feels like...cross grained, like…." Kane didn't finish, saying it in the 'net, Jensen was sure, and Jinx murmured agreement, those pale, pale eyes of his blinking up at Jensen, little flecks of ic-blue and grey, ringed in black. 

"Glad you're back, Quemuel," Jinx murmured, and Jensen rubbed the back of his hand over inconvenient, wet eyes, and sniffed. He looked over at Jared, who was looking right back, close as Jensen's own skin - wound up and snugged down, right into Jensen's heart. 

"Me, too. We both are," Jensen said, and it was so.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd, as always, by the amazing Darkhavens, without which you see my terrible, terrible addiction to the em dash.
> 
>  _ar-Rāqiṣ_ \- the dancer (Arabic)  
>  _Sunukkuhkau_ \- Cree Indian name meaning 'he crushes'
> 
>  _ **ETA:**_ Now with sex! And drug use, but it is *all* 100 percent consensual.

_you are the one_  
_i am lit for._  
_Come with your rod_  
_that twists_  
_and is a serpent._  
_i am the bush._  
_i am burning_  
_i am not consumed._

 

Lucille Clifton - 'To A Dark Moses'

 

 

Tripoli was a dark little system of three; a nameless brown dwarf, orbited by the shattered remains of what might have once been an exoplanet, with a mostly-water-ice moonlet slinging along in the L3 position. A hundred years or more ago, some wandering pirate had found the moonlet and made a killing with the ice, eventually becoming their own little kingdom, keeping the peace and keeping Tripoli open to whomever was coming through. They even had a station of sorts, in L5; a collection of modules and pods and habitats, all welded and epoxyed together, with skimmers and rigger suits for attitude adjustment, the whole thing having grown and mutated over the years to a weirdly lumpy structure, scatter-shot with blinking safety lights and, most definitely, illegally armed. 

Tripoli itself was the mid-point between five bigger, busier systems, smack in the middle of a great, big empty. It had shaved a good two, five, eight and more years off the routes between those systems, linking them in a shorter, mostly linear chain, instead of a long, long skip around the edges of a massless 'dead' zone. A popular place, for those that knew it, and most did. Maybe not the ships that plied the lanes and routes in quadrants billions of light years away, but it wasn't really a secret, anymore. 

Troopships knew about it, for sure, and Morgan said the _Nebuchadnezzar_ would skip to Tripoli first; only logical and about the only place ships like the _Falcon_ could reach from Axis that weren't deeper into more populated spaces. So the sooner they skipped out, the better. The captain of the _Diomedes_ agreed, astounded at having the fugitives arrive in a Federation troopship, instead of the _Falcon_ , _Tiamat's_ speed in the skip to Tripoli only adding urgency to their agreement.

The waiting made everyone antsy; Jared spent a lot of time just staying out of the way of hyped up ANGELs in standby mode, training and doing suit maintenance, sparring or fighting or fucking all over the troop decks. They tended to forget that not only could he not hear them, but he wasn't as strong as they were, and had zero training.

Jensen was trying to fix that, daily, with lessons on hand-to-hand that were full of dirty tricks and lethal little moves that worked with or without the armor. And Jared learned, with the muscle-memory of Jensen's body singing to him through the 'net, guiding him like some kind of invisible hand. It was unsettling, though, and nothing Jared had ever imagined himself doing. So that made _Jensen_ a little on edge, not sure if Jared was condemning him or sneering at him. Jared wasn't doing either, but his own inner uncertainly didn't help when Jensen himself wasn't always one hundred percent there. The things the 'net and the drugs and the prison med-unit psych-suppressant had smothered for years were getting stronger, now - creeping up on him when he least expected it, and he was always braced for that mental, emotional ambush. Braced, and scared, and angry, too. And sad and sorry, and Jared looked longingly at the derms Doc had given him seemingly ages ago, wanting to check them _both_ out, just to get some relief.

But he didn't - Jensen wouldn't - and there wasn't anything to be done, unless Jensen wanted it all scrubbed down again, which he didn't seem to, no matter how ugly his memories were. Jared got that, but he hated living in the moment with Jensen, completely helpless under the dual onslaught of memories of a life he'd never lived, and the fury and fear and shame they caused in Jensen.

They had, at least, the distraction of the endless arguments between Morgan and the crew about where they were going next and what, exactly, was going to happen then. An argument that only got more complicated when Doc and Raleigh and the rest were on board.

Turned out, they only overjumped the _Falcon_ by five days, Axis and the _Nebuchadnezzar_ three weeks and nearly four, respectively, in their collective pasts. When the merc ship popped in, skipping down the well and into the elliptic, alarms went off on every deck of the _Tiamat_. It took an hour for the _Falcon's_ pin-line comm burst to reach them; ID and trajectory and _Hello, just us_. Everybody calmed down, after that, though Jared could still feel the ghost-shiver of adrenaline and _ready steady go_ that had surged up in Jensen the moment the alarms went.

"Got some serious black market tech on that ship," Jensen said, eyes intent on a screen showing the _Falcon's_ path to Tripoli. "Engineering's gonna want to see the rig they got."

"I'm glad we're done waiting," Jared said, and Jensen flashed him a quick grin, agreement in the 'net, and a steadying down of nerves. 

 

In the middle of the dog-watch that same day, when most of the troops and crew alike were at mess, Morgan had what remained of the executive crew (only the Arms-Com Ensign and Second Nav), the drop-ship pilots, and the ragged remains of troop LT's and sergeants up in the briefing room under the bridge, debating their next move. A handful of ANGEL platoon leaders had tagged along, and of course everyone from Axis, though Morgan looked like he wished it could be kept military only. Silently, Jared pointed out Raleigh, who Jensen hadn't ever met, and Celeste, and the handful of other _Diaboli_ from Axis that Jared had worked with, on and off, for almost a year. The way Jensen noted them, memorized them, and then dismissed them was so distinctly ANGEL, it made Jared grin, even while it gave him a little shiver of unease. It was efficient, effective...cold.

 _SOP_ , Jensen thought at him, with a little frown, and Jared sighed and nodded and stifled his un-military thoughts.

Morgan was arguing for a place he called 'the Giraffe', that was marked on the star chart as MS 0735.6+7421. Jared asked Jensen what a giraffe was, and got a blank look and shrug in return. Morgan didn't seem to know what it was, either, just that that was what it was called. Apparently, it was a supermassive black hole, full of gases heated to something like fifty-million degrees, that emitted x-rays and gamma rays and it all sounded like a place that might tear a ship, even a troopship like the _Tiamat_ , to bits, or at least cook the crew and suck them down to oblivion.

Morgan rolled his eyes when Jared said this, and the crew and assorted Angels looked impatient and irritated, so Jared retreated to the edge of the briefing room, feeling stupid.

 _No_ , in the 'net, a negation of that emotion - a flood of information about what the ship could and couldn't withstand; the shielding and the composition and the deflection waves she could generate. How _safe_ the ship was, things civilians couldn't know. _SOP_ , Jensen thought, this time his mouth curling in a little smile, and Jared leaned against the wall and grinned at Jensen, hands down in his pockets, little nudging memory of that kiss they'd shared, in the Angel showers. Just...because he could. Jensen grinned back, slow and so damn _happy_ , and that kind of….made up for everything.

"Look," Doc said, holding her hands up, palm out, in a _everybody shut up_ gesture. "I can't do this without facilities. State of the fucking art facilities! Which we have at _ar-Rāqiṣ!_ It's completely secure, it's been a hub for the _Diaboli_ for decades-"

"Which is why we can't use it. Now that we've got a vaccine, and a troopship, and fuckin' _ANGELS_ , do you really think they're gonna just let us go?" Morgan's salt-and-pepper hair was longer, curling around his ears and the back of his neck, falling over his forehead. It didn't match the last time Jensen had seen him, and Jared felt Jensen's little twitch of _different different_ like a mental poke, every time. Jared shrugged his shoulder into Jensen's and did his best to distract him, and Jensen apologized with a little, warm uprush of emotion, even as he flinched again. The hair was just a diversion, though, from the knowledge that Morgan (Gunny, superior, lover, the _Morrigan_ , who laid waste when he so chose, like an apocryphal god ) was actually their best ally, and most staunch defender.

"Every fucking Company ship in the 'verse is gonna be looking for us. And you have _no_ idea the resources they can pull."

"Maybe I don't, but I know what _we_ can."

"It won't be _enough_ ," Morgan said, and then he made an inarticulate noise of pure irritation, and shoved his flesh-hand into his pocket. He pulled out a data stick, sliding it into the port in the holo unit in the middle of the room, tapping the clear surface as the interface came up. And then a map sprang up, a starfield, rotating as Morgan manipulated it. Everyone crowded in closer, gazing upward, mostly in the plain grey or black or tan coveralls of crew, rank and insignia stitched in a deep gold. The Angels were in down-time navy blue, _Archangels_ with their facial tattoos that made a ripple of _back off_ shudder through Jensen every time. _Thrones_ , who tended toward boutique-surgical quirks, like pointed, tufted ears and single-color eyes, and a couple of _Principalities_ , skin dyed in swirls and starbursts, blue and green, red and purple, silver and gold. They all watched as Morgan tipped the holo, enlarged it, and pointed.

"Look, here. Here's the Giraffe, okay? Not a lot at the center, it's too hot. But out here, on the rim, it's a pretty junky system. Got dust, got asteroids and comets, got a couple exoplanets at the very edge, all gaseous. A big, messy, noisy system with the biggest, noisiest black hole at the middle." Morgan looked around the room, the holo shining blue-white off the planes of his face, striking sparks on the gleaming black polycarbonate of his prosthetic left arm. 

"It's almost impossible to track anything in there, and it's the perfect place for us to hide. For a _a lot_ of things to hide." Morgan reached for the holo table, enlarging the map, fining the view down and down, until it showed a little string of asteroids, evenly spaced, of various sizes. Another tap, a few more degrees of magnification, and it was obvious that the asteroids were at least partially artificial, clear lines and curves of deliberate architecture.

"What the hell's that?" Raleigh asked, staring, and Morgan grinned.

"That is _T'ssmg'ku_ ", Morgan said, or something like - hiss and cough and moan, nothing Jared had ever heard before. A little note popped up, on the holo, a word, Jared assumed, in characters that were squiggles and lines and dots, utterly alien. "It's an arcology - it's a station, and science labs, and refining and research. Almost ten thousand people live there."

" _What_ people?" Doc asked, leaning in, squinting as more of the alien characters popped up. Raleigh looked...fuck, like he was going to have some kind of _fit_ , and Jared felt Jensen straighten up with a snap beside him; saw the ripple through the room as the other Angels did the same, some current alerting them. 

"The people in charge of the Giraffe, what they call the _M'mtss_." Morgan was grinning hard, his gaze circling the room, looking self-satisfied, completely aware that whatever he was going to say was going to get a reaction. "It's the Quo."

After that, the briefing devolved into complete chaos.

 

"It's fucking bullshit," Kane snapped, and Sous muttered in agreement, leaning into his shoulder. Jensen was leaning into his other, utterly unashamed of claiming his own bit of skin and body-heat, and he could _hear_ Jared approving, or enjoying, or _something_ in the 'net - indulgent, warm emotion that made Jensen want to curl up and hum, content. Instead, he just squeezed Jared's hand, where it lay laced with his, and focused on the holo in front of them again.

Morgan had given them all a copy of the data: maps and charts, a language lexicon that nobody was even touching, at this point. And a file of images. Various shots of the arcology, obviously taken from a skimmer or observer ship, showing how the asteroids were chained together, linked somehow not only in orbit but structurally, the murky light of the system showing shadow and shine, rock and metal. A few shots were _inside_ , as well, showcasing an architecture that was distinctly un-human; every corner rounded, every line a curve, plant life that seemed to be an integral part of the structure, light that seemed to be strongly directional, and weirdly colorless, to human eyes. And everything was _big_. Whatever lived here - Quo, or not - they needed space, and height. 

No pictures, Jensen noticed, of any kind of tech, or anything that looked like controls, or boards; nothing. And no pictures of the Quo. _Easier to fake it_ , Jensen thought, and Jared hummed an agreement, as intent on the holo as everyone else.

"It _can't_ be bullshit, it's the fucking _Morrigan_. He's not some daff-headed fantabulist," Jinx said, turning the holo images, slow reel. "Look what he's done, with us, with the ship. Look who he _is_. What would be the point?"

"Some Company trick," a voice said, and it took a moment for Jensen to realize it was Sunukkuhkau, the oldest _Nephilim_ on the ship. Jensen couldn't remember the last time he spoke aloud, and looking over at the tall, hatchet-faced man, Jensen got the impression he was doing it because of Jared. Grieve, snuggled up close beside him, seemed to think the same, too, and nuzzled his cheek into Suni's shoulder, approving.

"How so?" Jinx asked, nothing but respect in his voice, and Sunukkuhkau made a gesture of his hands, wide-spread fingers curling in the air, coming together into fists, clenching tightly around each other.

"Lure and surround and trap," Malik murmured, and the Angels shifted, the idea moving through them, through the 'net, sinking in.

"But...so many of us are dead," Perin said, and that rippled through them, too; grief and anger and helplessness, emotions Jensen was feeling all on his own, seeing them mirrored in the faces around him. Jared's fingers squeezed tighter onto his, a little spike of alarm in the 'net, _would they, could they_?

"Jensen?"

"I dunno, I…." _...maybe? Company, fucking Company…._

While the _Nephilim_ were intact, as were _Demons_ , _Archangels_ , and _Seraphim_ ; the rest had taken hits, some crippling. As they debated, the seven surviving platoons were starting the long process of complete 'net re-set, erasing deeply-embedded presets and psych-triggers, aligning them so they could stand together, fight together. They would reform, one platoon and one not-quite, something they were calling Recon, since they couldn't muster a full compliment of 36 Angels. _Grigoris'_ LT - his whole platoon gone in the takeover - would helm that chaotic amalgam, and they'd field-promoted a Sergeant for the other. The Company - the 'net - made it possible to synch an outsider with others, so platoons could get new recruits, replace lost troops. But it was hard, and messy, and it _hurt_ , and neither unit would be up to much of anything, for at least a month live-time. Yet another reason they needed to move, to go to ground, to be safe. Jensen had thought, for a few heart-pounding moments, that maybe _his_ 'net… But Doc had shaken her head, her gaze sad. His 'net was too different now, mutated past anything the Company had ever intended, and hostile at the deepest levels to Company genetics.

Jensen pushed that lingering disappointment away, letting Jared's warm squeeze of his hand ease the sting. "No, Company wouldn't risk it," Jensen said. "They couldn't know what would happen onboard, they couldn't know if one of...us would just take the _Tiamat_ and ram her bow-first into a station. I don't think it's a trick. People _did_ see the Quo, once."

"Three hundred years ago, maybe," Jinx said. 

_Not that long_ , Jared thought, but didn't say, and another ripple of shared thought went around the room, Angels contemplating the fourth alien race in the known 'verse - one that had vanished, without a trace, decades before. Most everyone knew the stories, even if mostly they thought of them as a spook-story, a snipe hunt, something to freak out the greenies. Not _real_.

The Quo - the Quiet Ones, the Whisperers - had initiated contact with the Earth ship _Lig Danser_ at Iota Orionis, sometime in the 22nd century. At first, the contact had seemed peaceful, and the Quo - they called themselves something mostly unpronounceable, a collection of hisses and clicks and half-choked noises human throats couldn't reproduce - were curious and eager to learn. And then something...happened. A Quo died, and a human was badly hurt, though the blame seemed to be on both; a mess of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and misplaced trust; of concepts and assumptions that had seemed, on the surface, to mesh but in reality did not.

After that, the Quo had faded away, cutting off all contact four years after their initial hail, and, for all that Jensen knew, never having been seen or heard from again. Kept alive mostly in the untethered imaginings of the deep-spacers, in the nebulous time between skip and stability, when minds were loosed and some Angels swore they could feel the cold of the Between, curling chilled fingers around their hearts. 

Jensen had always thought them to be nothing much - a lie, a dodge, made up to hide an uglier, or more boring, truth. But here was Morgan with files and pictures, saying he _knew_...saying there was another layer, beyond the Federation, beyond the Company and the Devils and every other faction, quasi-government, cult or militia out there. Something with an agenda that was _friendly_ to them. To the Devils, to the ANGELS. Friendly, but alien. Utterly so.

Jensen shivered , willingly gathering up Jared, who had sat up and pushed into Jensen's side, a little mental shiver bouncing between them. 

_Trust Morgan?_ Jared thought, the Sergeant's rasping voice in his head, like the growl of a sentient machine. 

_I do. I trust him,_ Jensen thought, knowing that his tangled emotions and sometimes less-than-pleasant memories of Morgan confused Jared. Hell, they confused _Jensen_ , sometimes. But Jared trusted _him_ , and that was enough. 

"I think it's good intel," Jensen said, looking around him, taking in the faces of people - his _Angels_ \- that he'd thought he would never see again. "Settle it."

That ripple, again: bodies shifting, breath pulling in and puffing out in almost perfect synch as thoughts and opinions flowed, nano-seconds of time, between 'net and 'net. Swift flicks of looks from this and that Angel until Five, Jinx and Sinna nodded to each other, the last three squad leaders left, forming up around the hole where Kee had been. They looked straight at Jensen and it was just like before, it was just like always. Jensen had the final say, Jensen their platoon leader, and Jensen ached to take that spot back for real. But he knew he couldn't; couldn't use the armor, anymore, couldn't re-synch with a Company 'net. It wasn't for him, ever again, that ferocious, single-minded animal that was an _ArchANGEL_ platoon.

But he had this, for now, and it had to be enough.

"The Giraffe, then," Jensen said, and the whole of them gave a collective sigh of agreement and capitulation. "I'll tell Morgan."

 

 _"Word in the 'verse is, nobody knows what went down with the Quo,"_ Morgan had said. He'd stood at parade rest, flesh hand locked around polycarbonate wrist, his dark, intent gaze tracking the gentle spin of the holo as it swung through long ellipse of the Quo arcology orbit, years in the travelling. 

_Thing is, the Quo don't fight. Not with each other, not with anybody else. Seems impossible, 'specially with the Stick around, but they don't. Haven't for centuries of their own history. They didn't like what we were doing, fighting our way through the 'verse, but they were willing to overlook it, if we were willing to try other things. We needed to take a few more steps along our evolutionary curve, they could see that, and they wanted to...give us a boost."_ Morgan had grinned humorlessly and flexed his polycarb arm, the soft whirr and hum of its internal servos audible in the hush of the room.

_"We haven't made much progress. But seems like, right before they disappeared, they got wind of the ANGEL research. They were already light-years ahead of us, tech wise. Hell, they always will be. Tracking correspondence and communiqués and sifting through notes and proposals...it was nothing to them. The way they are, their minds, their tech...nothing is a secret. Nothing is kept from anyone, even children. They're wide open, all the time. They had a better handle on our language than we did on theirs, for all they can't really make most of our sounds, and we can't make theirs, so nothing was really stopping them from getting the complete picture._

_"But what the Angel system could become - what was **planned** for it, way back then - it scared them, and it...disgusted them."_ Morgan's gaze had skimmed over the Angels in the room, who'd looked back, stony-faced. _"It was, to them, a kind of...abomination. To meddle in a mind; to deliberately change how it thought, and reacted... They could see further than those first scientists ever could. They decided we were just too damn crazy for our own good, and definitely for their good. So, they backed off. They just...faded away. They had a more efficient skip-generation than we did, at the time, and the 'verse? Is wide."_

Morgan had stepped up to the holo table and spun the zoom down, until the Giraffe was a swirling spot of light adrift in a vast, populated space, galaxies upon galaxies, humanity a thin web tenuously linking so very few points of life and warmth.

_"Space is big, and they had time. Time for us to figure ourselves out, or kill ourselves off. But they didn't forget us, or what we might do. And they still don't fight - won't fight. But they're willing to shelter us, and lend us tech, and put an end to what the Company is doing. Gene-meddling, mental alterations - they see it as the ultimate betrayal of sentience. To wield that much control over another's body and mind and the…they call it the **sgchyss**. Something like. The soul. To them, it's something akin to genocide, what they think the Company can do. What it **will** do, in their estimation. The Quo see helping us as a mission of mercy, and we'll take all the help we can get."_

Morgan had leaned on the edge of the holo table, the sparkling dance of galaxies swirling over his skin, and he had grinned, and it was the razor-sharp snarl of the Morrigan, the battle crow. _"Thing is, how they see us ending this, and how we see it...are two very different things. So we have to move forward carefully. Very, very carefully. Ladies and gentlemen, we are giving ourselves over to true believers. Better start tryin' to scrub out the bloodstains."_

 

 

There was enough of a support structure at Tripoli for the _Tiamat_ to re-supply and repair, and prep for the long series of skips that would take them to the Giraffe. Morgan gave them forty-eight hours, no more, no less. The Angels who would be deep into the throes of the 'net re-set would actually be helped by a skip-out, rather than hurt. It still wasn't going to be pretty, though.

A swarm of mercenary ships and pirate skimmers and random, hopeful entrepreneurs invaded the _Tiamat_ at all hours, offering everything from black-market parts and ANGEL chem to 'ponic-grown food, drugs, and medicines. Any number of warm bodies were on offer, as well, tempting in their eagerness and variety. They took on some of the parts - the few remaining crew amazed at just how _much_ was out there - most of the food, and a few of the medicines, hand-picked by Doc, Celeste and the three remaining _Tiamat_ medicos. Sous and the _Thrones_ LT, Trejos, sorted out the drugs and found a few things that would work with the 'net, and Morgan pretended not to see, knowing full well exactly how many drugs ANGELs used, needed, and wanted. One of the drop-ship pilots got his still going again, churning out raw alcohol that reeked of glycol and burnt sugar-substitute. 

While skip-prep went on all around them, the _Nephilim_ retired to quarters with ten or so hoarded liters of the pilot's disgusting skip-whiskey (his name for it) and a dense block of opium-soaked hemp. They had a little internal sorting of their own to do, and Jensen stood there, grinning so hard it hurt, as Kane was inducted in as the newest squad leader amidst shouting congratulations and ululating cheers. His squad would be short an Angel, but no less for it, and as Sinna carefully acid-etched his new designation into the breastplate of his armor, every Angel stepped up to congratulate him, his new squad forming up one by one, to stand tall behind him. 

Jared went up, too, a little uncertain, but riding the bursting happiness that Jensen couldn't even begin to control. He gave Kane an awkward hand-shake, and then shook his head and pulled Kane in for a hard, body-wrapping hug. Kane laughed, the shorter man managing to actually lift Jared up off his feet by a few inches, leaning far back, before spinning him away, into the crowd. Then he looked at Jensen, and Jensen stepped up last, his heart pounding. Happy, fuck yes, because Kane would do good, he was worthy. But sad, too, under it all. Just a little. 

"Kane," Jensen said; it was _all_ he could say, his throat aching and his hands shaking, his belly knotting up and his eyes stinging, tears threatening to spill over at any moment. And then they did spill, as Kane reached out and pulled Jensen in for a hard kiss and harder hug, his face pushing into the thin skin behind Jensen's ear. 

"Missed you," Kane said, his voice thick. "Missed...thought you...were dead, hurt, it...fuck, _Qemuel_ ," Kane rasped, and Jensen hugged back just as hard, lips pressed to Kane's temple.

"I know. I know. Me, too. Missed you," Jensen whispered, his body reacting in the old way, to the familiar heat and scent of Kane's, the way his hands curved around Jensen's ribs, the way they fit together, knee to hip to chest.

Jensen leaned in and closed his eyes and was just _there_ , for a long, long moment, and then he pushed back, lifted his head up off Kane's shoulder and grinned at him. His gaze flicked back to Malik and Grieve, Sous and Perin, all of Kane's new squad, and his chin went up, that little 'come hither' gesture they all knew, and they all surged forward, surrounding Kane, dragging him back, laughing, now; touching, kissing, _owning_ him, like they needed to, like they wanted to. Like they had for Jensen, ever-so-many years and stars and battles ago. This time was theirs, was for them and for Kane. Jensen felt a moment's bone-deep misery, watching all of the Angels retreat to the skip-couches and bunks, drink being passed, and little anodized pipes of the poppy-smoke; watching hands and mouths and bodies touch and curl and take possession.

 _You and me and yours and mine and us, there's us, still us_. A confused, insistent rush of emotion from Jared, a mix of hurt and need and something like anger, or maybe betrayal, and Jensen turned and found Jared, standing with his arms crossed tight against his chest, huddled into an angle of the wall. Out of the way of the crowd, watching Jensen through long strands of disordered hair.

 _I know you us me you our own, each other's, I know, sorry, sorry…._ Regret and longing and a little shame, and Jared's head came up as his shoulders sank, as his arms slipped down.

"Fuck, Jensen, I'm…. _Sorry_. I didn't mean to- I'd feel that same way, I guess, if I…if I'd lost-" _Family, heart, mama…._ Jared bit his lip, hard, and sniffed, irritably wiping the blade of his palm under his eyes, as he looked away, trying to reel in the emotions he was sure Jensen didn't want - couldn't care about, in the storm-surge of his own unhappiness.

"No, don't-" Jensen took two quicks steps right up into Jared's space, close enough to feel his heat, the strong muscles of his thighs tight against Jared's own. His belly and his chest lifted as Jared breathed, and Jensen breathed, too, in sync, in time. "We know, we both know _lost small cold, so cold, all alone, all alone_ hurting. I don't mind. But _us, we, together now, same, you and me, us_ we've got something else. Okay? Is it...are we.... _enough, is it enough am **I**_...?"

"Oh, fuck," Jared said, rough-voiced, and his arms came around Jensen and his whole body seemed to envelope him, muscle and bone, skin and heat, fingers digging into Jensen's back. And Jensen grabbed him back, hugged Jared just as hard, holding on, holding _tight_ , against the surging, aching rush of loss and misery, loneliness and longing. 

A rush that surged and ebbed and then rose again, different, loss changing to _having_ , desolation to joy. It was natural - it was like breathing - when Jensen's mouth found Jared's and they stood for a long, long space of time, just breathing, just tasting, Jared's hands slipping up under Jensen's shirt and sweater, Jensen's hands creeping up into that ridiculous, incredible hair….

Jared broke away, laughing, his face wet as he looked down at Jensen with eyes that seemed to hold all of the stars in them, galaxies and supernovae, bright and blooming. "It's not ridiculous _love it, you love-_ , you love my hair."

"Civvie. _Greenie_ Like some kind of crazy weed, like _softest thing I ever...just want to touch…._ It'll foul every filter on the ship."

"Not my problem," Jared said, grinning, and Jensen grinned back. Then Jensen was pulling Jared away from the wall, across the room, tugging on his hand and looking back, going for the skip-couches and the tangled sea of bodies, of _Angels_ , that lifted and fell, arched and writhed, curled and stroked and breathed together.

"Jared..." he started, and Jared didn't even hesitate. He pushed and pulled and tugged at clothing until they were both naked, pale in the rich light of the room, gleaming, in Jensen's eyes. Both of them carrying scars, both of them marked, in so many ways, by the Company, by death, by struggle.

Someone laughed, and someone put out a hand - moved a thigh - more hands, and more, and Jensen and Jared both toppled down onto the soft, springing surface of a couch, a knee here and a shoulder there, heat and sweat and soft sounds of pleasure. Someone - Malik - pushed one of the little pipes into Jensen's hand. Propped on an elbow, Jensen applied the little hot-stick to the hemp (no open flame on a ship), and took in a long, long drag of the smoke. It was hot and sweet-scratchy in his throat, expanding in his lungs, instant light-headed rush. Jared, half on Jensen and half on his side, was taking a swig of skip-whiskey and his reaction to it shuddered through the 'net and Jensen laughed, coughing out smoke, as Jared choked. 

"Fuckin'- fuck, what the hell do they _make_ this out of?"

"Dead Suits," Sinna said, her own voice rough from smoke and whiskey and cheers. Jensen traded with Jared; took a long pull of the whiskey and felt it burn his gums and tongue and throat, roll up fumes into his sinuses and start a coal in his belly, heat radiating out. He took another long drink as Kane dragged Malik down, kissing and sucking at his throat, his jaw, and then tossed the null-safe cup toward an empty spot of cushion. Jared was letting smoke trickle out through his nose, slow exhale, and Jensen got another hit, whiskey and hemp and poppy combining in them both to a warm, drifting slide. 

Sinna lifted the pipe from his fingers and Jensen reached for Jared, _warm_ and _pretty_ and _touch me_ in the 'net, slow surge of intention that seemed to take forever. Jared grinned at him, untangled a leg from between someone else's, and crawled right into Jensen's space.

Jensen ended on his back, looking up at Jared's face, the long ends of his hair tickling Jensen's cheeks, and Jared grinned some more and did a little snaky twist of his neck, sliding his hair across Jensen's face, shivery-slick. Jensen huffed out a breath, watched the hair lift with the air and did it again. His hands crept up into the long strands, to pet and comb and tangle in, and Jared settled firmly between Jensen's sprawled thighs. His body was known and unknown; muscle memory coming through the 'net, feedback echo of sensations. _Like fighting_ , from Jared, curl of amusement. 

Jensen knew, instinctively, what Jared liked, what felt _good_ , but it was still amazing to discover that a slow rake of blunt nails down Jared's spine would make him arch and hum, eyes going half shut. Incredible to watch, when Jensen's fingers slid into the cleft between Jared's cheeks, how Jared's eyes seemed to go dark and blaze up at the same time, plump lower lip caught in his teeth, his hips grinding down on pure instinct. Flushed and faintly glistening with sweat, every sensation seemed to stretch out forever, to quiver and echo and rebound, over and over.

"Jen-sen," Jared breathed, and dipped his head to nip at Jensen's throat, that point right under his ear, that made Jensen shudder and his thighs come up, gripping Jared's hips. Jared curled his back and bit again and rubbed the length of his hard cock up Jensen's belly and then back, and Jensen pulled at his shoulders, dragging him down. Both of them were breathing shuddery-fast, both of them clutching and pulling and wanting and _needing_ -

"Jensen, can I, do you want- _me us, in you, like this, this, this_?"

"Yeah, yes, fuck." Jensen turned his head, groaning, to find Jared's mouth and they both jolted, startled, when a cool hand reached down, trailing slick from Jared's balls to the head of his cock, to Jensen's hole. Jared's head whipped around, arms gripping tight around Jensen, and Jensen rubbed his hands up Jared's back, soothing.

_Angels, it's okay, just Sinna, no harm_

Sinna grinned, all sharp edges and sweat, turning away to catch the dark bud of Five's nipple in her mouth, squirming down on Five's hand. Jensen's fingers came up to touch Jared's chin with the slightest pressure, and Jared turned with him, looking down.

"Okay? It's just, it's- _Angels, just Angels_ family, how it is, doesn't mean-"

"No, I know, I..." Jared took a deep breath and rolled his hips, gliding now, cock to cock and a little slither lower, pushing at Jensen's hole, sliding past. "I want...this, I want _us us us can I please_ you, is it, is this-?"

"You know it is," Jensen breathed, and he tilted his hips up, one heel digging into Jared's thigh, the other in the small of his back as he reached down between them to curl his fingers around Jared's cock, little gasp and shiver between both of them. Pushing, pulling, getting him right _there_ , until Jared pushed and then pushed again, breathing hard, and Jensen arched up and pushed back and let him in. The first hard, sweet burn faded to something else, clutch of muscle felt from both sides, shivery feedback that built up fast, nearly overwhelming in minutes, both of them crying out, clutching bruises. 

Until Kane caught one of Jensen's hands, lacing it with his own, grounding him with that touch. And Sinna reached over again and tugged at Jared's hair, rubbing her fingers through and through it, her head tipped back in bliss at what Five was doing between her thighs. 

Jared half-laughed, half-gasped, going still for a moment, and Jensen craned up to get one, two, threefourfive kisses, nipping at Jared's mouth.

"God, it's...I can _feel_ you, I can… _so much it's so much is it really...so good, I didn't know, didn't know, you in me, me in you_ How'd do you...not do this all...fucking day?" Jared gasped out, and then looked down in happy surprise as Jensen started to laugh. Vibrations rolled through his body and through the 'net, rippling out, rebounding back, both of them laughing as Jensen lifted up and clenched down hard. Jared rolled his hips and rutted down, harder and faster, groaning into Jensen's neck and laughing, too, still, and Jensen gripped Kane's hand tight and clung to Jared and felt himself unravelling, opening; tipping over the edge and falling, electric-stutter spasms locking him into a hard, desperate curve as Jared shoved in harder and bit down, _salt_ on both their tongues.

Sinna's hand tugged at Jared's hair, a tingling prickle, and Jared pulled against it, gasping against Jensen's throat. Jensen got his own hand off Jared's back and slid it up, into the strands, bumping into Sinna and then dislodging her as she groaned aloud and clutched frantically at Five's shoulders, thighs flexing.

Jensen looked up at Jared to see Jared watching him watch _them_ \- felt that moment's jealousy and then acceptance in the 'net, the unfolding understanding. _You and me and me in you and us and them and **us**_... Jared thought, and Jensen caught it and sent it back, then clenched around Jared's half-hard cock and yanked him down for a long, long kiss.

And got his tongue bit, hard, as the klaxon sounded and the lights flashed, and Angels startled, cursing and yelling, bodies scrambling all around. Jared coming up off and _out_ of Jensen with a shocked noise, leaving Jensen groaning, thighs clamping together because _fuck_ , he hadn't been ready for that, not at all, fucking _damn_.

_Sorry, sorry, fuck, what…?_

_"Battlestations, all hands, battlestations and skip-prep. Prepare to break dock and skip out, get your area secured and get to stations. Long range scan is showing imminent skip-down. Not a drill, people. It's too big and too clean to be anything but the **Nebuchadnezzar** , and we are fucked if she gets in before we get out. _

_Repeat: **Nebuchadnezzar** on long-scan, all hands to battlestations and immediate prep for skip-out. Move, people, let's **go**."_


	18. Chapter 18

_Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;_  
_I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night._

Sarah Williams - _The Old Astronomer to His Pupil_

 

They skipped out with klaxons still blaring, the Angels suited up and in battlestations. Jensen and Jared were in the auxiliary command right down by the quarters, safety-webbed in with the Jo boys and a cabinet of weapons. The drop-ship pilot and scan-tech that manned those boards went into the jump under the lightest possible sedation, in the hopes that they could react on time if the _Nebuchadnezzar_ caught up mid-skip. 

It was possible, just possible, if the _Nebuchadnezzar_ never slowed down in her wild career across Tripoli's elliptic. The thought of that other troop ship - shielded, weapons live, and every ANGEL on board suited up and ready to go - finding them in the bubble made Jensen's heart pound, fury and panic skittering through the 'net. It was already saturated with stress-reaction, _Tiamat_ having exited Tripoli at full power, _g_ -force making the heart labor and the blood want to pool, making the lungs fight to reinflate. Four hours to get up to skip-velocity and out of Tripoli's pull; four hours with the whole of Tripoli scrambling behind them, shoring up holes and making sure of stories and doing their best to foul _Tiamat's_ wake, and make her trail less clear.

From Tripoli, though, there were only a set number of places to go, troopship or no, and _Tiamat_ had to stay ahead until at least four jumps down the line. Then choices multiplied, and for at least six jumps after, there were a dozen directions to choose from. Seventy-two times, more or less, for _Tiamat_ to shake their pursuit - for _Nebuchadnezzar_ to get it wrong.

A handful of jumps after that, almost twenty, all told, to the Giraffe. _Years_ , Jensen thought, and Jared turned his head toward him, teeth gritted, sweat trickling in rivulets down his temples and his hair already stuck to his skull, lank.

"What? What d-do you me...ean? Years?"

"Real time," Jensen said, and then gave it to him in the 'net: the wheeling course of skips and stars, the way the universe would swing and turn and sail, as they skipped above/below/beside, from point to point, bubble gliding along the interface. _Months in the skip, two, five, nine...adds up…._

 _Long?_ Jared thought, with an emotion underneath that Jensen couldn't quite grasp, and Jensen closed his eyes, fingers tangled in the webbing, just touching Jared's hand. 

_Years. Five, six years. Only months, for us...twelve or thirteen._

"Jen-Jensen," Jared said, his voice strained and wavering and _sorrow, lost, so lost, all gone, changed and done and over_ in the 'net, an ache so profound that Jensen had to catch his breath against it.

"We're here," Jensen said, and _all of us together, no different, no matter, leave it, Jared, let it go, it's done, we fly, we fly…._ "We're here," Jensen said again, and then the pulse came through the ship, the siren-bleat of warning, and _Tiamat_ skipped out.

 

Two skips, three, four, and then they had half a system to traverse before they could reorient and find the next skip-out point. A few hours, for stressed bodies to try and relax a little, recover. Jensen dragged Jared up and off the bench, reeling with hunger, exhausted and hyped at the same time, forcing his head out of the static-grey _nothing_ it went to, sometimes, in the long dark of the Betweens. Missing, with an ache that went to the bone, the skip-packs and the drugs and the warm, electric embrace of the suit, that made trips like these… _’a piece of easy’_ , Kee would say, and Jensen missed _her_ , with a violent pang that made Jared start, gasping.

"Sorry, sorry," Jensen muttered, shutting that down. Tugging at Jared's arm, he kept them _both_ moving, out of aux-com and down the corridor, right and then left into quarters. The Angels were already there, going by squads into the showers, never more than a quarter of them at a time on stand-down while the ones left suited did scrub-down and systems check, all routine. Jensen lifted a hand to Malik and Sous, already lathered and under the shower spray, as he pushed Jared toward the laundry chute and started to strip.

"C'mon, Jared, gotta get clean." Forty-plus days of sweat and skin, their jump-stalled bodies revving up to full gear as the drugs cleared their systems. Jensen shoved his wrinkled, sweat-stained clothes into the chute and staggered to a shower head, feeling a burst of surprise from Jared when he registered the fact that any padding of fat they'd both had was gone. Jared had never skipped so long or so far, and he wasn't used to it. Jensen stood under the spray and then jerked, startled, as a hand touched his shoulder.

"Jensen, your hair," Kane said, and Jensen blinked water out of his eyes to see a handful of strands tangled around Kane's fingers, dripping water.

"What the fuck?"

"S'normal," Jared said, eyes shut and face turned up into the hot water, and _happens, like skin, like everything… comes out after a skip, did it before_. Jared had done a two-jump trip, from Kin-Gin to Salome, and a three and a two, after, working for the Company. Longest skips he'd ever done, before this one. But he still knew something Jensen didn't, or maybe something Jensen had simply forgotten, in all his years on the _Tiamat_.

Kane shook the wet hair off his hand, nose wrinkled, and Jensen got soap in his hand and _scrubbed_ , seeing more swirl away into the drain and imagining a huge, tangled lump of it somewhere in the plumbing, all soap-sud slime and lank tendrils….

"Fuck, don't, don't think about that," Jared moaned, _sick, fuck, belly hurts, don't_.

"Jared, sorry," _get clean, we'll go eat, get some calories into you, you'll feel better_ Jensen said, blading soap off his skin with the edge of his palm, as he turned under the spray. Kane's squad got out, reaching for towels before heading to the X and the packs _Tiamat_ still had; new drugs, new day, back into battlestations in suits still damp from a wipe-down and de-con. Jinx's squad came through on their heels, focused and fast. 

_Need to move, go, too slow,_ Jensen thought, and what Jared sent back was confusion and a little irritation, and the sensation of the water unknotting muscles and easing the pounding in his head. 

_Only been a couple minutes, don't need us, can't we stay…?_

"Fuckin' greenie, fuckin' _waste_ ," Jensen muttered, but it was true - they couldn't suit up, _he_ couldn't, and they didn't need to hustle through their shower, didn't need to scramble back into suits and stations. _Sorry, yeah, sorry, not the same, not the same anymore…._

"It's okay," Jared said, coming around the central, rising line of pipe that sprouted showerheads at the top like a halo. "We can get out, I wasn't thinking. Jumping out soon, yeah?"

"Pretty soon. Couple hours," Jensen said, feeling a little pang of guilt, but not much. He scrubbed his fingers through his hair one last time, dislodging a few more strays, and then waved the water off. He took the towel Jared tossed to him and wiped down, fast; dressed fast too, layering on the long-sleeved, knitted overshirt, this time, against the chill of the corridors. He wanted to talk to Morgan, and they could use the officers’ mess to do it, nobody to stop them.

 

 

The line for food wasn't too long. They got a few looks, sure, but more curiosity than antagonism. Jared felt himself relaxing as Jensen took his tray and headed toward a table. Jared took the next one, giving a little nod to the server in the window who looked haggard, dark circles blooming under his eyes. He followed Jensen, sliding in beside him, into a chair with at least a pretense of padding, not the bare glassine or metal he was used to in mess halls from Salome to Axis. 

_Officers_ , Jensen thought, with a ripple of disgusted amusement, sharing the instinctive bristling of a troop confronted with a higher-up. But none of the men and women at the tables looked like that brief, image-heavy burst - no fancy food, no special uniforms, no extras. Everyone looked worn and drawn and just _exhausted_ ; shadowed eyes, shaking hands, the sleeves and collars of utilitarian grey coveralls hanging loose around too-thin wrists and throats. Doing worse than the Angels were, that was for sure, with no 'net to speak of to help them maintain, or to build back up fast.

Even Morgan, who surely had no duty running the ship, or even dealing with Angels right now, looked harried, scooping up his hash of egg, veg-protein, and freeze-dried potato with the grim air of a man at his last meal. Jensen poured some kind of sauce on his hash and handed it to Jared with a little nudge, and Jared took the squeeze-bottle and sniffed.

Tabasco. Staple of military chow halls since time began, it seemed. Jared tried a bite of the hash without sauce and hastily added several squirts of it. It wasn't _bad_ , just...too processed, too bland, too cooked. 

_Best they can do, skip-chaining. Everybody's tired,_ Jensen thought, and Jared agreed as silently, the subdued murmur of the mess not encouraging talk at all.

"Morrigan," Jensen said, and Morgan visibly winced. "Morgan," he corrected himself, a little bloom of remorse in the 'net, for poking at the other man that way. 'What did you tell them that left us?" Jensen asked, and Morgan sighed, lifting a glassine cup to his mouth and drinking what Jared presumed was coffee. Coffeine, maybe; it was too pale to be the real stuff, despite the black market additions they'd taken on at Tripoli.

 _Save it for later. For winning_ , was the brief, shakily hopeful thought Jensen passed him.

"Not much. Enough." Morgan's voice was rough, painful sounding, and he coughed shallowly before taking another sip. "Told them we were getting free of the Company hold. Told them we had an alternative to the Company drugs, something just as good. Didn't want them telling tales." Morgan yawned and scrubbed at his eyes, and Jared wondered if the Company would put two and two together...just _what_ they would figure out, in the years (fucking years) that they would have before Doc and Celeste and the rest of the them could really get to work on synthesizing the vaccine. And how long would _that_ take? More years? Decades, maybe, before they could even make a start, and the Company might have plugged every hole, by then, might have fixed every leak...

"Jared," Jensen said, with a little nudge in the 'net, and Jared blinked and looked over. "They don't know enough. And the Company doesn't- It's big, it's like…." There was a flood in the 'net, of images and information, but too much of it was without context, history Jared had no grasp of. 

"I don't-"

"Fuck. It's the hallucinations. Morgan?" 

Morgan wiped his mouth on a paper napkin and took another sip of Coffeine. "Ten, fifteen years ago, the Company switched out some of the stuff in the go-packs. Different drugs, different mix, supposed to make it smoother, better transition, easier come-down. Supposed to work better with the down-packs and whatever shit the Angels use that they all pretend they don't, and the Company pretends they don't." Morgan scowled at Jensen, who snorted into his plate, a little whirl of impressions in the 'net, drugs of all sorts coming across his tongue, into his lungs, explosions of light and sensation and emotion.

"But it didn't work, or...it worked, but it wasn't compatible like they thought. A lot of the troops started having hallucinations, sometimes on the come-down, sometimes during ops. We got a patch on it, some medico off the _Kanchinjínga_ who'd done some study on drug interactions. But it still crops up, and it's not fixed, ‘cause the Company is fucking huge, and it moves slow, and if you ring an alarm in the head, it takes a while for the heel to hear it, let alone react. Plus," Morgan added, with a look at Jensen, who nudged Jared's knee under the table and sent him something in the 'net, a single, blood-soaked image of an unimaginable wasteland; some battle, some where, with no winners and no survivors. "We're expendable," Morgan finished, echoed by Jensen in the 'net.

And Jensen sent something else, as well. Bits of things he'd learned over the years, listening to Kee and Jinx and even Morgan; things he’d absorbed without realizing, and was now pushing at Jared the way he'd got it, in bits and pieces.

The Company had started out small, in the far history-back of Earth and space exploration; Consolidated Mining and Pneumatics Engineering. An independent company that figured out a way to mine asteroids without killing the crews or the ships; figured out a way to make _money_ off that mining hand over fist. Studied radiation and mutations and all the hazards of deep space, not out of concern for the miners, but to ensure profit.

Then the ANGEL program went public, something they had been watching with an avid interest. And it had _worked_ , which had been a surprise, it seemed, even to its creators. And CMPnE got hold of it, somehow; tangled paths of acquisition and influence that were lost in the dim archives of some Suit office. 

They had already had decades of taking over military contracts and worming into politics and threading their ideas and their influence and their hold into every crack and cranny they could find; now they had a key to unlock it all, because even after the Federals banned the ANGEL system from the regular troops, you still needed a modified 'net to pilot the jump-ships and drop ships; to navigate a skip, and survive in the Between. So the Company...grew.

That very size and power would work to their advantage, now, because nothing that big could move quickly, and many of the various projects and subdivisions and subsidiaries _competed_ ; for budgets, for priority, for relevance. Backstabbing and spying and scrabbling was SOP to keep from being made redundant.

Jared absorbed it all in silence, shoveling food in and hoping, idly, they could get seconds. He hadn't been this hungry since his first months with the 'net, back on Salome, when his body had had so much rebuilding and repairing and catching up to do.

"You really think they won't do...anything? Jensen said…" Jared swallowed, and felt Jensen's knee and calf press against his under the table; felt the little warm rush of affection and support Jensen offered. "Jensen said it was gonna be...years...until we...got there. To the Quo. That's a lot of time for them to...figure stuff out."

"They won't _know_ what to do. They'll be talking to ANGELs who just lost their ship, their platoons - everything." Morgan leaned back in his chair, his expression grim. "They'll be lucky if they're coherent, let alone cooperative, especially if Axis didn't get them down-packs in time. And the crew were just out of jump, and coming down off skip-tranq. They won't be much better."

Something beeped in Morgan's pocket and he fished out a little data-spot, frowning down at it. "I need to handle this," he said, pushing himself to his feet, and Jensen just nodded. He watched Morgan stalk out of the mess, head down, and then turned to Jared. "Let's go mess down with the Angels." _Better food_ , he added, knowing exactly what items the others had bartered for and squirreled away at Tripoli. _Chocolate._

"Okay," Jared said, and did his best - like Jensen was doing - to not think about those stranded troops back at Axis; months back, now, but still… _Just like me, just like me, lost,_ Jensen thought, a fleeting impression of his nest down in the Axis Mundi, his thin and shaking hand scrawling his name, and the Angel sign, over and over and over on the dim, metal walls.

 

 

The _Nebuchadnezzar_ caught up, three jumps from the Giraffe. They were in countdown, moving by rote. Tired to the bone and sure they were safe. Sure they'd lost the other troopship somewhere stars and months back. Sure they were sailing the void alone. 

But still going in suits and by turns, not letting their guard down, but bodies _ached_ , after all that time. Guts rebelled against the most bland of foods, lungs wanted to wheeze and cough, and everybody had the same dazed, half-gone stare. The Angels fared the best; burning through pack after pack, meal after meal. But only maintaining, by the skin of their teeth. Too much longer, too much further...and they'd be done. Even the 'net couldn't keep up, at the pace they were forcing, and the partly augmented crew and the civilians were limping, reeling, dropping stitches and moments of time. More dangerous, at this point, to themselves than the _Nebuchadnezzar_ promised to be. 

The klaxon went off like a bomb of sound, and Jensen felt his heart thump painfully hard and then start to race just as painfully, banging against his ribs as the lights on the aux-com board went crazy and com did, too; too many voices shouting at once. Kane's squad, already locked into skip-brace against the far wall, unlocked in one motion, suits hissing and blinking to life as they calleds weapons out of the suit's underlay and braced for action.

" _Battlestations, battlestations!_ " That was com-one, a scarred woman with a voice like a clarion, cutting through the chaos. _"All hands, arm and ready, strap in, hunker down. We're going to try a double-jump, see if we can fake 'em out. **Nephilim** , **Demons** , **Archangels** , you're first line. Get to the fiver, niner and dozen-deck accesses; hard lock and brace for a blow out._"

Jensen caught his breath at that, his fingers all but tearing the webbing he was struggling out of. He felt Jared absorb whatever wild jolt of emotion he'd just broadcast, and sent an apology hard after, but fuck, he was too busy, he was too damn _wired_. As the Angels marched out - Kane giving a lift of his rifle-arm, little salute toward them - Jensen pulled free of the webbing and dove for the weapon's locker against the wall, thumbing the lock open and reaching in. Pulse rifles, flash-bangs that could blind a suit, if only for a minute or two. Extra battery packs and a row of tasers, with kick enough to kill a man. Another row of ceramic-alloy knives, about the only thing that could cut through the tough under-cloth and delicate wires and hoses of a suit. Only for dire emergencies - for last stands.

 _" **Seraphim** , **Ophanim** , **Dominions** , you're second line; secure engineering and the skip array, Dominions at the forward weapons emplacement. All civilians to medical aux; brace and seal in, people, move your asses._"

Jensen stowed his own choices in his pockets and waist - slung a rifle over his shoulder and then was handing out the rest to the Jo boys, to the crew at the boards. To Jared, except Jared stood there mute and wide-eyed, the 'net pulsing _no_ and _can't_ and _Jensen, please, I don't know, I don't know…._

"Okay," Jensen said. Gulped and breathed and reached for Jared - yanked him into a hard, sharp-edged kiss. "Okay." _Troops only, fuckin' greenie, hair'd foul your aim, anyway, stay safe, help the medicos, it's okay, it's okay_

"Sorry," Jared said, _not a soldier, I don't know...what to do, please, I'm scared…._ and Jensen shoved a knife into his hand, black glassine sheath cool in his fingers. Cupped Jared's cheek, making those warm-hazel eyes meet Jensen's, making him _see_ , and listen.

"It's okay. You don't have to. Get in the web, get tranqed." Jensen rubbed his thumb along Jared's cheekbone, and Jared took a shaky breath, pressing into the touch. "I forget, sometimes...it's okay. The Jo boy's'll stay here. Yeah?" Jensen added, louder, and looked over at the two men, who were slapping battery packs into rifles and shoving extras into their pockets - thumbing safeties off and on again with a little click and hum, checking. Competent. "You keep aux-com clear, keep this greenie on his feet, hear me?"

"Hear you," Jo One said, and Jo Two nodded. They moved with trained precision, getting back into skip-webbing, securing tranq and drinks and Jensen felt marginally comforted.

" _**Erelim** , **Malakim** \- welcome back and sorry for the hurry. Suit up and stand up. **Erelim** will secure the med wing, **Malakim** to the bridge. We're in the count, seven minutes, no waiting. Go, go, go!_ "

"What was that?" Jared asked, jolted again, reeling in the 'net, trying desperately to lock down his own panic and shame and nameless hurt; furious at himself and scared spitless. Utterly unable, at the moment, to sort out the complicated crap that Jensen was throwing his way, purely unintentionally but there, nonetheless.

"Sorry, fuck. _Erelim_ is the new platoon, from all what's left of the old. _Re-key, re-set, hooking their 'nets together, making them whole again._ It's too soon, but...they'll be okay. _Malakim_ the same. _Not enough, not a platoon, just seven of them and their Sergeant. Runners, recon, scouts...we'll find a place, find a way to fit them in…._ " And Jensen knew Jared had felt his own bitter jealousy - his own still-aching need. 

_Just keep hurting you, sorry, I'm sorry, fucking stupid, you're enough, we're enough, it's good._

"It's okay to want what you had, Jensen. It's okay," Jared said. "Wanna tell me where you're going?" Because that was in the 'net, too - intention and decision, and Jensen pushed Jared gently backward, into the bench, into the webbing and skip-harness.

"I...have to...I gotta be there _mine, my Angels, my family, can't let them...if it comes to a fight, I have to...can't let them be alone, can't_." So many emotions that even Jensen had no clue which were his, which were Jared's, which were just 'net-wired habit and the routine of a lifetime. 

"But don't you think...Kane might -" _Feel small, feel jealous, his Angels now, you said, aren't they?_

"Quemel!" Morgan, in the doorway to aux-com, that deep, rasping voice making Jensen and Jared both flinch and twist to see. He was wearing the body-armour and modified skele all the non-Angel troops used. It gave him some height and speed, protection and a bit more power. Nothing like the Angel suits, that would tower even over line troops in full gear. But it was something. "You're with me. Armor and skele, down in quarters, get moving." 

"Jensen -" Jared said, his hand curling into Jensen's sweater hem, and Jensen turned back, feeling Jared in the 'net as yearning and sadness, pride and affection, fear and resolution. "Please don't...please be careful." 

"I'll come back," Jensen said, helpless to say anything else, and yielded easily when Jared pulled him closer and kissed him. _Promise, promise, be safe, stay here...._

" _Four minutes thirty, we have our course laid, there will be no free-time between skips, so keep still and stay off the fucking com unless we're breached,_ " com-one said, and the pitch of the ship's engines changed, dropping down into that bone-shaking vibration that preceded a jump.

"Got to move, Jensen," Morgan said, and Jensen nodded, forehead to forehead with Jared, eyes shut for one more moment of _we, us, safe, love, love you_.

"Roger that. Get that web secured, Jared, and get your tranq. S'gonna be over soon. All over."

"Okay," Jared said, straightening - squaring his shoulders - and Jensen smiled at him and turned and _ran_. Corridor and turn and turn and quarters, Morgan right behind him in the hum and hiss and rattle of the gear. They worked fast, hooking Jensen into the body-armor, and then he climbed up into the skele, settling the braces, locking down the straps, belting in and powering up, and a flash of memory came from Jared. A moment of time _Kin-Gin, skele, walking the hills_ , Jared's uncooperative body moving with stilted grace across grey-green hills, under a mercury sky. Jensen hung there a moment, gasping, lost in it. And then it was gone, leaving the lingering warmth of Jared's affection. Jensen slung the rifle and grabbed the go-pack Morgan passed him, and then they were both on the move again, corridors and the lift and more halls of grey and glassine, until they hit the austere, grey-and-gold of the bridge.

Pilot and seconds and switchers, com and weapons and life support, arrayed in a grand arc around the skip-pilot and navigator. No captain, anymore; she was back at Axis. Another of the crew in her place instead, looking harried. The engines were throbbing now, sensation below hearing, making Jensen's head fuzz and bones ache. Jensen locked his skele-sheathed left hand around an emergency hand hold and braced for skip, Morgan doing the same at his side, tranqs already in, the _Malakim_ arrayed around the edges of the bridge, in their mis-matched armors, new born to their own private 'net, raw with it, and already under fire. The skip-crew's hands danced over their boards, and com one counted down. 

One minute thirty. One minute. Thirty seconds...twenty…. An almighty _bang_ reverberated through the hull, and alarms and klaxons shrilled to deafening life. Another bang, and the whole ship lurched, a sickening moment of null- _g_ , everything feeling like it was expanding outward at supersonic speeds.

"What the fuck was that?" someone shouted - weapons, maybe - and com one half turned in her seat, pale eyes wide, her hands rock-steady. 

" _Nebuchadnezzar_ has grappled on. Repeat, _Nebuchadnezzar_ is grappled and locked. Count continues. Eight seconds...seven...six…"

"We can't - can we do that? We can't skip out with them grappled to," Jensen asked, _hold on, hold on, hold on_ to Jared, frantic as his heart. _Brace, here we go, we fly, we're free, I'm here, I'm here_ Tranq taking hold, and everything going slow, slower, warmer, dim.

"Guess we'll find out. They came in at light - they won't slow us down."

"Oh fuck, here we go _here we go here we go_."

_I'm here, hold on, don't let go, come back to me_

"Three, two, one - _Go_."

 _Tiamat_ and _Nebuchadnezzer_ , locked tight as two lovers, shivered and scattered and _flew_ , winking out of normal space and time, riding the line, skipping the sea. In the Between, bubble of light in an endless void.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My eternal thanks to Darkhavens, as always.
> 
>  _Basha. Malaya mbovu._ (Swahili) - Fucker. Rotten whore.

_Stars, I have seen them fall,_  
_But when they drop and die_  
_No star is lost at all_  
_From all the star-sown sky._ A.E. Housman - _A Shropshire Lad_

 

 

 

The bubble burst, and the _Tiamat_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_ slewed into slow-space, coming in with drop brutal enough to make Jensen shout, clinging to the emergency hold. The ship herself seemed to scream, a tortured, metallic sound, and the engine noise was amplified by the addition of the _Nebuchadnezzar_ 's engine, throbbing in concert. Waves of forcibly restrained almost-panic and nausea flowed through the 'net from Jared, and Jensen reassured him as best he could while struggling to clear the fog of the jump tranq from his own brain.

Jensen wasn't a pilot; wasn't rated to even sit a console in direst emergency, but he knew what was _right_ , and nothing about their paired skip or reentry was right at all. The ship felt _off_ , almost as if she were still half in the bubble, and the thunderous look on Morgan's face, and the increasingly frantic activity from the crew, told Jensen he was right.

" _We are re-orienting for skip-out, double check your packs, there's no down-time on this one, people. All sections report ready_ ," com-one said, and Jensen checked his tranq doses automatically, putting the straw of a squeeze-pack to his mouth and swallowing, fast; feeling Jared do the same in the 'net.

" _Nebuchadnezzar_ gave us velocity and probably more than double our mass. Fuck knows if we even hit the right skip-out," Morgan said, and one of the crew - some aux post, third or even lower in the chain of backups and redundancies, and so tucked back practically in the same corner he and Morgan were - looked blearily their way, and then at her boards. A moment later, her eyes went wide and her dark skin took on an ashy pallor.

" _Basha. Malaya mbovu._ " she muttered, her hands dancing over her console, and Jensen looked across the bridge, where main crew was working furiously, tension in every line of every body, barely controlled panic in voices. The _Malakim_ seemed all right, still locked into emergency holds, faceless in their armor. In a weird moment of utter clarity in all the haze and chaos, Jensen noticed that they had all added a wide swipe of five parallel lines, from left shoulder to right hip, in vivid blue-green paint, temporarily unifying them, until they could refit in armor all their own. _If they ever can...might not ever get new armor out here…._

"What-? What do we do?" Jensen asked, blinking back to Morgan's face, to what he'd said, feeling the tranq washing out of him as his adrenaline rose.

"Fucking nothing. Crew's job," Morgan replied, but he looked as twitchy as Jensen felt. "Two jumps and we're at the Giraffe. The Quo...they'll help us," Morgan said, but he didn't sound as certain as Jensen would have liked. The 'skele was pressing uncomfortably into his spine, his belly, his collarbone, and Jared sent him sympathy, and amusement. 

_Same when I wore one, damn things never fit right, had to pad it_ , with a brief flash of tape and rags wound around the glassine struts, someone else's hands smoothing it down. _Jaasau-mom_ , from Jared, and a well of emotion too deep and too wide, opening like a bottomless pit. Jensen recoiled, and Jared shut it down.

_Sorry. Can't, just can't, now, Jared-_

_I know_

There was a tortured, groaning noise that reverberated through the hull, and a klaxon that Jensen had only heard once before went off, drowning all the others.

" _Hull breach is imminent, section seals engaging on a count of ten. Get where you're going and clear the seals, people,_ " com-one shouted. " _Five, four, three, two, seals engaged._ " There was a thump and a shock, the air seeming to thicken, and Jensen's ears popped. " _All sections, report._ "

Section seals coming down partitioned the ship into smaller, more easily defensible compartments. They were blast-proof and could withstand hard vacuum. If the _Nebuchadnezzar_ _did_ breach them, the chances of explosive decompression were much slimmer.

But not absolute. And ANGEL weapons could burn through any bulkhead, eventually. Jensen had done it himself, on pirate ships and merc ships and Federal ships gone rogue. Once, memorably, on a Stick ship, where they'd been stuck in corridors too narrow for ArchANGEL armor, and had ended up fighting hand to hand through the dark, clotted warren of an alien arcology. The memories of _that_ mission bloomed garishly to life in his head, and Jensen hastily tamped them back down again at a shudder of revulsion and panic from Jared.

_Long time ago, not here, not now, it's okay, we're okay_

_Are they in? Did they breach? I can't get to you, I can't get to you-_

"Jared," Jensen said, and Morgan shot him a _look_.

"He's safe, fuck's sake, don't let him distract you."

"Fuck you, Morrigan, he's not a soldier," Jensen snapped, and _You're safe, I'll get to you, Jo boy's are there, you're safe, you're safe_

 _Trust you, okay, safe_. Jensen got the distinct impression that Jared was forcing himself to _breathe_ , to let go of his panic or, at the very least, to rein in it. To trust Jensen, and the Jos, and just...hold on.

 _Hold fast_ , Jensen thought, flooding the 'net with pride and affection. _Want you, need you, us, we, us, **us**_

 _Love you, too_ , Jared sent, coupled with a feeling that was breathless and bubbling and _warm_ , so warm.

"You with me, Jensen?" Morgan yelled, strain evident in his voice, and Jensen's eyes opened wide as he pulled himself mostly out of the 'net. The pitch of the engines had changed; the skip array was winding up again, gathering the charge as the ship put everything it had into upping their velocity. Never mind the _Nebuchadnezzar_ had boosted them already, slamming into them other-side. 

" _We are in count for jump, secure and hold, there will be a course change otherside, people, but we will not shed velocity. Repeat, **Tiamat** will not shed velocity so brace for hard **g** and double-check every belt and bind. We'll take her into a star before we'll let **Nebuchadnezzar** scuttle us,_ " com said.

Jensen took a long, deep breath against the rapidly accumulating _g_ force that was mounting, as the ships fought for way and aimed themselves at the next skip-point. _Nebuchadnezzar_ , at least, wasn't suicidal enough to try and take their jump-acceleration down; the stress of _that_ would rip both ships apart. Just suicidal _enough_ to try and breach their hull mid-transit.

The woman at the aux board had her head cocked, listening, and a wolfish grin suddenly spread across her face. She reached out and flipped a switch, and a sound rang through the ship. A growl, a roar - a word. _Tiamat_ , _Tiamat_ , _Tiamat_ , shouted from every throat of every ANGEL on board, all but drowning out the alarms and klaxons. The crew - what was left of it, seconds and drop-ship command, lifers close to mustering-out and greenies alike - looked shocked for a moment, puzzled, almost. Then Jensen saw a grim smile slide across com-one's face, and Jensen took a deep breath and _shouted_ , Morgan chiming in as if they'd planned it. He could feel Jared doing the same, down and down in the belly of the beast. " _Tiamat_! _Tiamat_! _Tiamat_!" A scream of defiance, an affirmation of life. A rolling, echoing, deafening salute to the ship, her crew, her troops. A _promise_. 

"Shut it down!" Morgan roared, after a long, long moment, his voice booming over a handheld turned to all-channel. "You heard com-one, boys and girls - strap in, sit tight, and get ready to fly!"

" _We're in count, skip out in three minutes, all stations report secure._ " com-one went to all-channel, too, and Jensen could hear every squad reporting in, Kane's voice and Jinx and Five, all the others, and then Raleigh down in the medical wing, hunkering in with Doc and Celeste and the rest. All present, all secure, roll call of every life-spark on board, and that was comfort and affirmation and preparation. All good, all set, all ready-steady and go, go, _go_.

And not a one of them to know if they would make it to the other side.

Jensen slammed the tranq home, little sting, and felt Jared do the same. He watched the _Malakim_ move in unison, a little shift and re-set, steadying down. He took a deep breath and checked his rifle and then laughed softly, bitterly. He wasn't even an ANGEL, anymore, and yet...here he was, ready to die for his ship and his Angels, the family the Company had handed to him like a toy to a child, and then wrenched away with as little thought.

"No such thing as an ex-ArchANGEL, Quemuel," Morgan said, flashing that pirate grin, and Jensen wondered what had shown on his face, just then.

"Sir, no sir," he sassed back, and then took a deep breath and surrendered to the tranq as space and time and real-not-real warped around them, and the troopships once again skipped out.

 

Surfacing from the skip this time was like being thrown straight into battle. Alarms were blaring, consoles flaring red across every station, and that klaxon was going again, only this time it wasn't stopping. Jensen blinked and struggled to turn his head, _g_ pressing him tight to the padded bulkhead at an odd and uncomfortable angle. The _Tiamat_ was shaking, resounding to blows somewhere forward and below.

Crew were moving slow, fighting _g_ forces that wanted them immobile, fighting tranq and far too many jumps in a row. _Hitting their limit_ , Jensen thought. _Can't keep this up_.

 _Query query query_ from Jared, more emotion than actual thought, drug-addled and hurting and _scared_. And trying so damn hard to keep it locked down, keep it at bay.

 _Hull's breached_ Jensen sent him, on the heels of the com clicking to life, still on all-channel, echoing a little.

" _Breached, we are breached, niner access. All stations report and sit tight, we're are moving for jump, no velocity change, skip-out in fifteen minutes, on my count. Repeat, we are breached, skip-out in fourteen minutes, forty seconds. **Nephilim** , battle conditions and report any movement at the niner access._"

Acknowledgements came back, short and to the point, and Jensen waited, his heart pounding, pounding, for Kane to check in; Kane, Jinx, _his_ Angels. Beside him, Morgan's 'skele creaked, and Jensen looked over at him, a mere shifting of his eyes. Morgan was trying to get his 'skele to _move_ , pushing hydraulics and servos to their limit, fighting the _g_ , recklessly stupid.

"Morgan," Jensen said, and Morgan made a growling sort of noise, the 'skele lurching from one hand-hold to the next. 

"Need a...senior down there. Should have...never come up here," Morgan said, his voice coming out choppy and breathless as he pushed _g_ and his own struggling lungs. Jensen wanted to shout at him, wanted to punch him in his stupid, blood-congested, sweating face.

"What _I_ fuckin'...said, you...bastard." Jensen told his 'skele to uncouple from the safety hold and _move_ , crawling in tortured slow-motion across the bulkhead, following Morgan. _Just like old times_

 _Be careful be careful, how are you-? Fuck, be safe_ , Jared thought, and he was trying _so hard_ , and doing so damn good. Greenie, battle-virgin, _nothing_ in his life had ever been like this cluster-fuck of a voyage and he was…

 _So proud of you, amazing, fucking amazing, one of us, you are, Komanshee, Devil Dog, ANGEL in your blood and bones, Jared_ The only way Jensen knew to say it, to _really_ say it; 'I love you' were just words, and you could say them to a dock-side whore or a really good mechanic, but bringing him into the line of them all, into the history and the stories…. 

_One of us_ , Jensen thought, again, and pushed everything, everything he was feeling right at Jared, hard as he could. And got back nothing for the longest beat of his laboring heart, and then…. A flood, a rushing roar, of emotion: delight, and terror, and love, and lust; a soaring, shouting, _giddy_ spiral, that blew through Jensen like a strong wind, and made his eyes go shut as he braced against it, basking in it, just lost, for a moment that was just theirs, just them, just _us we you me us us us_

"Fucking...hell, move your...ass, Angel!" Morgan shouted, breathless, and Jensen jerked back to _here_ and _now_ , sending Jared what he was doing, hoping he understood. He forced his 'skele forward in Morgan's wake, while the crew fought the ship into line for the next - last - jump, and together they got the din down to something not-deafening, shutting off sirens and getting systems that had gone offline, gone down, switched to first and second and maybe third redundancies.

And still nothing on com from the _Nephilim_. Jensen clamped down on the gnawing, ice-toothed worry that was stirring in his gut and just _moved_ , hand-hold to hand-hold, the 'skele shaking and whining in protest, Morgan cursing and grunting and moving at a ridiculous crawl, but…. All they could do. 

" _ **Nephilim** , report,_" com-one was saying, her lined face set in an emotionless mask, dyed red and blanched white by the flashing lights on her board.

All-channel hissed and warbled, a sudden burst of noise, and then: " _Got visual con,_ " Kane said, his voice static-fuzzed and thin with strain, and Jensen felt a flush of hot-cold go over him, relief so profound he felt light-headed for a moment. He felt something similar rebound back at him from Jared, hearing Kane on all-channel; the whole ship, hearing, and waiting.

" _Can see...thermal...breach...sion plasma… **shit**!_ "

" _Clarify all before 'shit', **Sariel**_ ," com-one said, to a ripple of amusement from bridge crew, from the ship, from Jared, who had managed to get a squeeze-pack to his mouth. The flood of fake-lime in the 'net made Jensen wish he'd done the same.

" _They're still...cutting,_ Kane said, the transmission abruptly clearing, and _that_ went through the ship, as well; shock and dismay. " _How in fuck? Thermal confirm, got 'em...fuck. Com, Morgan. Set to...vent. They're still...coming. Set to vent...if we can't-"_

"Belay that!" Morgan snarled, and Jensen pushed himself those last few feet, to the lift that sat at the very back of the bridge. The _Malakim_ at the hand-hold there had shifted aside a little, enough to let them both through, and Morgan was already in, working the bulk of the 'skele around, cursing _g_ and the tight quarters.

"I'm on my...way down. Stand fast, _Nephilim_ , weapons...ready."

" _Sir_ ," from Kane, and all-channel was picking up noises, now: the high-pitched whine of a fusion-plasma torch, the creak of a meters-thick bulkhead that was being stripped down, layer by layer, until they could just punch right through. They could vent that whole section, if they had to; just blow it, and maybe set off a chain-reaction and blow the _Nebuchadnezzar_ , too, or both ships. If the yaw and pitch of the reaction itself didn't send them into a fatal spin, so much _g_ it killed them all. 

_Let's not do that_ , from Jared, thin amusement and _you, me, us, love_

 _Let's not_ , Jensen thought, and finally, fuck, got wedged into the lift with Morgan, who hit the button. The doors hummed shut, and they lurched into motion.

" _Four minutes, fifty seconds to skip-out_ ," com said, and Jensen got the squeeze-pack he'd taped to the 'skele to his mouth, just a motion of arm and shoulder, a turn of the head. The fake-lemon taste seemed to burn across his tongue and down his throat, but it was good. It woke him up.

The ship _lurched_ , as if buffeted by a sudden blow, and the lift made a horrible, grinding-metal noise and shimmied to a dead stop, making Morgan and Jensen both stagger. The lights flickered. "What the fuck?" Jensen said, and then all-channel crackled to life, static-ridden and all but overwhelmed by the screech of over-stressed metal.

" _Breach... have a...fuck, coming...arms up, arms-!_ " 

" _ **Dominions** , repeat, do you have a visual?_"

"Don't fucking fire unless they're in the ship," Morgan said, and other voices chimed in, a babble.

" _Shut it down, damnit, clear this channel, **Dominions!** Repeat!_ " com-one snarled across the channels and the voices went silent, leaving only the sounds of the _Tiamat's_ hull being reduced to scrap and someone - _Dominions_ platoon leader - snapping out orders. Everything was undercut by static, interference from the _Nebuchadnezzar_ and whatever they were using to cut through at the weapon's emplacement. It was one of the most heavily shielded areas of the ship and Jensen didn't know what the hell they were using, to deconstruct that part of the ship. Something big. Something bad.

The lights flickered and the lift jolted once, twice,, then started moving, only emergency lights, red and blue, lighting the small space. 

" _Com-one, we have...breach...detect...skip engine signature...falling back...defensive…._ _Dominions_ reported ended in a squeal of static and another lurch from the ship - the lift - and Jensen stared, wide-eyed, at Morgan.

"What did-? Did they-?"

"Using the _skip array_ to punch through?" Morgan said, and pounded his fist, once, on the bulkhead. "We're gonna fuckin' die here," he said, and the lift juddered to another halt, the doors coming half open. Smoke poured in, tainted with the reek of burnt plastics and ionized glassine. Jensen could see emergency lighting all down the corridor, and then two armored hands gripped the lift doors. With a creak and a squeal of tearing metal, the lift doors were forced open and a _Dominion_ troop stood there, weapons evolving up out of the armor as they stepped back, giving room.

Jensen got out first, closer to the door, and got his rifle slung and ready. Morgan followed, lurching into the corridor wall as the ship bucked under them, and then they were moving down the corridor, Jensen and Morgan both fumbling filter-masks up over their faces, sealing the nanopore edges down and blinking smoke residue out of their eyes. _G_ was oriented differently here, in the gut of the ship, and they fought not to 'fall' back into the lift. 

The noise was deafening, the peculiar, bone-rattling hum of the skip array only the thin skin of the ship's hull away. The Angel gestured right, and Jensen and Morgan took up a ready stance there, at the top of the emplacement. Forward, bow-ward, were the weapons control center, the arc of consoles and chairs, the screens that currently showed the _Nebuchadnezzar_ in radar silhouette and on camera screens, digital images breaking up, pixilated as the skip-array blasted interference.

"They're fucking insane, they're going to kill us both. Sargeant! Prepare to fire, on my order."

" _Understood, Morrigan_ ," they said, static-hum in Jensen's head from the 'skele's little conduction mic.

" _Twenty-five seconds to skip out_ ," com-one said, and Jensen groped for his tranq. Which wasn't there.

"Fuck, fucking hell!"

"What?"

"Tranq's gone. Must have...got torn loose."

"Fuck," Morgan said, and Jensen looked at him, at the bleakness in his voice. "I don't have a spare, Quemuel."

"I... Okay," Jensen said, and _what? Tell tell_ from Jared. _No tranq, block me out, don't listen, won't be good_ Jensen thought. No tranq, no tranq...every warning and greenie scare-story he'd ever heard about sailing that line, skipping the bubble, rattled in his head. Ugly, hopeless, fatal. His blood was roaring in his head but he couldn't...hear. Not a thing. _No, no, no, fuck, no, not like this_

_Jensen_

" _Eleven seconds to skip-out. Ten, nine -_

The wall at the top of the emplacement consoles suddenly glowed too bright to look at, and seemed to crumple in slow motion, ionizing into nothing, into sparks and smoke and glittering dust. 

"Com-one, we're breached! Vent us! Fire at will! Fire!" Morgan shouted, and Jensen brought his rifle up, the targeting sensor homing in on dim, colossal figures, moving in the glare and smoke. The ANGEL weapons all went off at once, a deafening roar, and the skip-array's noise went out of the audible range into something you only felt, in skin and bone and gut. 

_Us, us, you, me, us_ Jensen thought as his finger hit the trigger, and his rifle fired, a solid _thump_. Didn't matter, now, about the tranq; com was going to vent them, they were all dead. But he didn't want - couldn't have - Jared following him into that, in the 'net. He had to spare him that. Methodically, his finger on the trigger, the rifle blasting and armored figures moving in a stop-and-go hard- _g_ crawl, he pulled himself out of the 'net. 

_Jensen_ Faintly, so faintly. _Here, I'm here_

_Don't listen, stop listening, shut me out...goodbye_

" _...two, one. Skip-out._ "

_Us, you, me, **Jens-**_

Silence, and the blank, black nothing of the Between.

 

 _Jensen_ someone said, and Jensen turned toward the sound, every bone in him aching. _Jen, Jensen?_

 _Who?_ he asked, but his voice was...nothing. A slight vibration in his throat, no sound.

 _Hey, co-pilot, wake up_ Sam said, and Jensen opened his eyes. And saw the bright, white walls and ceiling of the _Glorianna_ , the plush couches and chairs in every shade and color. A monitor showed the opening screen of Star Chaser, ships and stars and the Captain, hands on hips, smiling.

_Sam?_

_Hey, buddy. Thought you were gonna sleep forever. Don't you want to play?_

Jensen pushed himself up slowly from the nest in the couch and looked _up_ at Sam, because Jensen was...small. So small. He looked down at thin hands and chewed nails and the uneven cuffs of the sweater Sam had lent him, brought from Earth for their long, long sleep. _Sam, you...but you-_

_Died? I did. I will. Sometime. Ages ago. Not yet._

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but nothing had changed. _Sam, I can't...be here. You can't. This isn't-_

 _Jensen_ , Sam said, and his voice was soft, that little smile he wore when he was teaching something, when he knew Jensen would understand, once he's been shown. _Do you know where you are?_

 _Dead,_ Jensen said. Sam just kept smiling, his eyebrows lifting a little. _I'm dead. Aren't I?_

_No. You're in the Bubble, Jensen. Faster-than. You're skipping the line._

_But...nobody can live through that,_ Jensen said, and Sam reached out and put his big, broad hand on Jensen's thin shoulder. He was warm; his hand was warm, through the sweater.

_Who told you that? You need to pay attention, now, Jen. Hear me, co-pilot?_

_Yessir_ , Jensen replied, automatic, and then had to clench his hands into fists, tight, to distract himself from the wrenching ache in his heart.

_You can't keep coming back here. You're making things worse. Every time, you leave a little more behind. You're going to get stuck here, Jensen._

_But...I...what? What do you-?_

_Every skip, every jump. You keep putting a toe over the edge, you keep going out a little further. You need to let go of us, Jensen_ , Sam said, and the whole room flickered, for a moment, from white and bright and clean to burned, shattered panels and scorched carpet, something red and black moving on the floor, twisting in agony.

 _ **Stop** that!_ Jensen choked, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt something pressing into him, back and hip and shoulder, felt something pinning him like a huge, monstrously heavy paw, stink of burned metal in his nose.

 _I'm not doing it, Jen. I'm dead, remember? In the future, I died._ Jensen opened his eyes and the game room was whole again. It was Sam that was wrong. Sam that smiled at him, and then wavered and went to the red and black thing, skin cracked and peeling away, face swelling, hair gone…. _Don't, Jen, come on. Leave it alone._

 _I don't know...what you mean. I don't, I don't-_ Jensen couldn't breathe, and Sam's hand slid from his shoulder up into his hair, rubbing gently at the nape of his neck.

_You're so scared of us, Jensen. You're so scared of everything you saw, and did. You won't let us go, and you keep remembering us, in the skip. In the Between. It's everywhere, you know? All time, all places. And you need to let us go._

_But I...but...I killed them_ , Jensen whispered, and the game room flickered again. Warped and skipped to the birth labs. For a moment they were bright and clean, orderly, pink and tan and dusky-dark babies in rows, smiling, waving little fists. And then it was dark, and the miasma of rot and infection was in Jensen's nose, and the light was grey and colorless and it was hot. The only sounds were the tiny, whimpering cries of the starving babies, and the sick, wet-stick crack of a neck breaking in Jensen's hand. _**No** , no, no, don't make me, don't!_

 _Jensen, shh, it's okay, Jen._ Sam was hugging him, ruffling his hair and rocking him a little, shushing him, and Jensen just held on, tight as he could. After a long moment, Sam set him back, and Jensen risked a look around. It was just the game room, empty, new, untouched. _We died, Jensen. And when we die, you just have to let us go. You're the Captain, remember? You did the best you could, and you saved as much of the crew as you could. I'm proud of you, Jen, but you have to stop. You can't stay here, you have to go._

 _How can you be proud of me, when I did...did that?_ Jensen asked, and he wasn't little anymore. He was as big as he ever was, almost as big as Sam. Bigger, as he put on his armor and stood up, helmet nearly brushing the ceiling, the 'net humming in his brain, Kane and Sinna and Kee and the rest just there, out of sight, around a corner. Sam looked up at him, so impossible and strange, and he had that same small smile on his face. 

_The Captain has to make the hardest choices. It wasn't fair, and it won't ever be right. But you'll do the best you can. You did what you had to do, to keep them alive. But someone's waiting for you, Jensen. You need to go, and don't come back._ Sam didn't look sad, or angry. Just...happy to see him. Calm, as if none of what had happened - was going to happen - had touched him.

 _I lost...so much_ , Jensen whispered, and Sam reached up as high as he could, his hand on the chest plate of the armor, over the designs Sinna had etched. Over Jensen's heart.

 _But look at what you'll have, Jensen. Look what you found,_ Sam said, and he flickered again, not to his burnt and dying self, but to something else - to Jared, smiling at him from behind that ridiculous hair, reaching for him, touching the side of his face and how could he do that? Jensen was in his armor, Jensen was in the 'skele, Jensen was down in the guts of the _Tiamat_ , and the whole weapons array was venting into space and taking the _Nebuchadnezzar_ with it, and Jared was half the ship away and gone, impossible, impossible….

"Jensen? C'mon, honey, Jensen, please come back _us, me, you, please, please_ , Jensen, please…."

"Here," Jensen said, his voice ground glass and sand in his throat, his body going from a numb floating to lead-heavy agony, light and sound and smells rushing in, like air into a vacuum, blinding him, deafening him. He made a distressed, wounded noise, drowning.

"There you are, there, fuck, knew you'd come back." Jared was bending over him, arms digging in under Jensen's shoulders and half lifting him, clutching desperately, hurting him. _Knew it, here, I'm here, don't go, stay here_

"Whe…." Jensen said, and fuck, it _hurt_. He pushed that, clumsily, through the 'net and Jared squeezed him even tighter for a moment before easing him back down. Pulling a wand out from the wall, he brought it to Jensen's lips, allowing little sips of cool water that were sheer bliss in Jensen’s mouth. _Where where where?_

"Oh," Jared said, and wiped his face with his palms, sniffing hard. He was a mess; pale and thin, his eyes sunk in bruised-looking sockets. "We're at the Giraffe. The Quo- Fuck, Jensen, you won't believe what happened. The ships, the other Angels...it was bad, it was…." _Lights flashing, **g** crushing the air out of Jared's lungs, breaking his bones, pulping his organs, the **Tiamat** shaking to pieces around them, alarms, screams, tumbling out of control, sickening, terrifying ___

__"We all almost died, Jensen, and you… They knew, somehow. The Quo saved us."_ _


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is it, the penultimate chapter! I am so very sorry that I have let this drag on for so long. But I hope that with the light now shining so bright at the end of the tunnel, you, my faithful readers, can feel you've not waited in vain.
> 
> Thank you, Darkhavens!
> 
> _Taichou_ \- Captain (Japanese)

 

_This shaking keeps me steady. I should know._  
_What falls away is always. And is near._  
_I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow._  
_I learn by going where I have to go._

' _The Waking_ ' by Theodore Roethke 

 

Jensen stood by the broad, deep observation port at the far outer skin of the Quo enclave. One hundred meters away, give or take, on the other side of the port, rested the entwined, skip-blasted hulks of both troopships. They seemed to have merged, somehow, or - destructing and self-destructing mid-skip - shattered apart and then come back together all mixed and mingled.

One thing, for sure: neither would ever skip again, and that...that was like a punch to the gut. Jensen leaned there, his legs still shaky under him, palm on the smooth, slightly warm, slightly curved material of the port, watching the little lights that meant the Quo equivalent of pushers and skimmers were out there, examining and salvaging. 

Apparently, they'd 'rescued' a fair amount of personal baggage, for which Jensen was grateful, because that meant he could stand here in the fake fatigues and layers of socks and tee and over shirt and sweater Jared had got for him back on Axis (though he hadn't, and _would not_ , resort to coat and gloves and scarf. He was done with that; with that hiding, that erasing.) Years gone, and only days done, through the strange, telescoping time of Between. 

Jensen wondered, idly, what new things had happened, in the time they'd skipped the line; what new kills and cancers the Company had cooked up. A flare of actinic fire from a cutter made him startle, blinking, and Jensen tried to push that particular thought aside; tried to concentrate on something else. But the salvage was like watching a corpse being picked over, taken down to the bones, and it made something inside hurt, to think the _Tiamat_ would never ride the bubble again. Never shake loose of time and space and fly free, in the Between.

Jensen walked away from the port, following the gentle curve of the Quo halls, his hand going out from time to time to trail along the walls, touching the strange textures. Some kind of free-growing biological made up the support structures of the living areas; _trees_ , Jared had said. They were a strange combination of glass-smooth and rippled at the same time, roughly cylindrical, too big for even Jared to put his arms all the way around. They soared up and up - twenty, twenty-five meters - and then divided, again and again, forming a sort of web overhead.

Globes of light depended down - some kind of bioluminescence - and _leaves_ , which were strange and soft and rigid at once, long as Jensen's arm, spread out like two hands with the fingers opened wide. They were a mix of blues and greys and greens, some with purplish veins, some with red. The air filtration made them stir and lift and shiver, an endless susurrus of sound just on the edge of hearing that was soothing and nerve-wracking at the same time. The space between the...trees...were panels made of more bio-stuff, chopped and pressed and formed. It had the same patina as the leaves: glossy and veined and vari-colored, smooth under Jensen's fingers. 

Give them their due, the Quo had done their best to make a section of their arcology as human-friendly as possible, but the cool, wet air had strange scents that just teased on the edge of awareness, and the light was not quite _right_. It wasn't home, it wasn't the _Tiamat_ , and for a moment Jensen just stopped dead, eyes shut, fighting an upsurge of emotion that was almost violent in intensity - panic, longing, fury. 

_Query query_ from Jared, somewhere off in the depths of the Quo arcology, a faint pulse of question and concern.

_Good, all good, safe, fine_ , Jensen sent back, and scrubbed his fingers roughly over his face and up through his hair, scratching over his own scalp and forcibly driving those emotions away. He kept walking, feet silent on some kind of woven bio-stuff floor covering, until he came to the pressure door that gave way to medical.

This was completely human. The Quo had somehow, somewhere, gotten a hold of over two dozen of the snap-together med bays that hospital ships and stations used, as well as crates of human-specific medical supplies. The Quo didn't fight, certainly wouldn't pirate, but you had to wonder just where in fuck they'd gotten it all. The other humans - the _Diaboli_ who had been on the arcology when the _Tiamat_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_ had arrived - weren't telling, which meant Jensen had his suspicions. 

But at least it was familiar. The strong, amber-green light and damply cool air of the Quo gave way to drier air, antiseptic scents, and bright white light. The med bays were in a series of pale colors - blue and pink, amber and green, grey and white and lavender - chilly, and sterile, but comforting. Jensen went first to the rows of airbeds, where the grievously wounded lay. Morgan was there, and Kane, and Kane's squad: Malik and Grieve and Sous and Perin, all wrapped in generation gel and webbing, cradled in tubes and wires. Morgan was without his prosthetic, and all of them were burned, all of them unconscious, for days, now, almost two weeks. Beyond them were more. _Dominions_ that had survived, burned and battered and some not breathing on their own. All that had survived the detonation of the skip-bubble, that incredible wave of heat and destruction - of a noise so loud it had gone beyond hearing, to pressure and pain and blackness, an endless, noiseless howl that Jensen had felt in his bones.

_Jensen_ had been there with them, for five or six days. But his 'net was working like it had been meant to, and he had healed. He’d grown back skin and muscle and bone; coughed out the dead tissue of his seared lungs and shed the crisped remains of his derma to emerge whole and healthy. But still reeling, still hurting.

Everyone else was kept under; healing, but so slowly, because while the Quo had plenty of supplies, none of it was Angel- _specific_ stuff, and even if it _was_ , and everyone was fixed up, good to go, they had no down-packs, no maintenance, no nothing. 

So all down the line of chilly, pastel bays were all the _rest_ of the ANGELs, even the survivors from the _Nebuchadnezzar_ , kept in a sort of restless twilight, because what the hell _else_ could they do? Until Doc and Raleigh and the other _Diaboli_ scientists could kill their old 'nets, and bring the new, clean ones back online, they didn't dare risk the troops being awake. Being _aware_. Something like three-hundred plus ANGELs decompressing, destabilizing, coping with the loss of both shipmates and _ships_ , and going toxic with withdrawal on top of everything else... _no one_ was prepared to deal with that.

So Jensen came here, every day. Not to visit, because he was the only conscious one, but to...see. To bear witness, and to promise them, if only with his presence, that they, too, would be free of the med bays, eventually. Free of the 'net, and of the Company. Free of everything.

Jensen stood by Morgan's bed first, looking down at the creased skin of his face and the streaks of white in his dark hair; the shadow of stubble that smudged his jaw. He looked _old_ , when Jensen had never thought of him as anything but unchanging; a fixture that Jensen's sequestered world all but revolved around. And now...he simply looked _small_ , and worn, and somehow diminished, with the age-worn scars of his stump silvery in the light, his face hollow and his bloodless lips chapped.

Jensen shook that away and moved on, ghosting past Perin and Sous and Grieve with little pats to their wrapped feet; stopping for a moment to stroke the ashy-dark skin of Malik's cheek. He fetched up, finally, at Kane's bedside and stalled there, standing with Kane's warm fingers tucked into his cool ones, one hip up on the bed a little, as he leaned down to murmur the news of the day. To tell him he was safe, and his squad was, and he'd be up and around in no time, swear it.

Kane's hair was growing in, just a little, a dark fuzz on his skull, and that was unsettling, too. The _ward_ was; the seemingly endless rows of beds and bodies, the soft hum and swish of the machines, everything dim and still, only the lights from the monitors illuminating small patches of shadow.

Too much like the _Glorianna_ \- too much like memories Jensen acknowledged, now, but still didn't want to face. He was trying, he truly was, to let it go. To do what the memory (or ghosty?) of Sam had told him. Trying as hard as he could. Jensen sighed, and did his best to concentrate on Kane, checking the monitors, the tubes, the wrap. He told him about the Quo and the arcology, about the _Diaboli_ and Doc, about the vaccine; repeating himself, but maybe Kane could hear him. Maybe it made a difference; maybe it helped. After a while, Jensen just sat quietly, matching his breathing to Kane's assisted sighs, sinking into the twilight of the bays, letting himself go a little into the hush of it, just...blank. 

He was brought back by a Quo firefly. Jared had said a firefly was some kind of bug; Doc had argued they were ships. None of them could say the Quo word for them, but _firefly_ stuck. They were little sparks of light the Quo used instead of some kind of com system. They used them for other things, as well, but nobody seemed to really understand what, or how, or why. Mechanical or biological, Jensen had no idea, and the Quo weren't interested in explaining. Every Quo Jensen had seen had at least a handful, hovering around at all times.

This one, a ruddy orange-red, was hovering just in front of Jensen's nose, chiming at him. The chime itself - more vibration and hum - was repeating fairly rapidly, which meant the firefly had been trying to get his attention for at least a few minutes.

"What?" Jensen said, and the firefly flared once, bright yellow-white. "Fuck - _ns'ssu_?" he said, and the firefly stuttered, whiteyelloworangered. 

_'Alert alert alert. Come to main obs-con immediately. Emergency'_ , the firefly said, or, more accurately, repeated. Some would record whatever message you needed them to carry, and someone - Jensen didn't recognize the voice, some _Diaboli_ \- had recorded this one.

" _Fuck_! Acknow- damnit, _chugn_ ," he said, dismissing the firefly, which blinked out. Emergency, and for how damn long? He was aware, finally, of Jared, in the net, still pretty far away - probably already in obs-con - trying to get his attention.

_Sorry, sorry, Kane, medical, sorry, coming-_

_Good, hurry, okay? Hurry_. Urgency in the message but not panic, not fear. Or Jared was doing his best to keep calm. 

Jensen leaned down to give Kane a quick, light kiss, and then he was gone, striding out of the med bays and, only a few more minutes later, out of the human section of the arcology altogether. He took one of the bubble-lifts (that's what they looked like, a shimmering, translucent blue-white bubble, trapped in a net of more bio-stuff) up and _through_ , all the way into the main Quo arcology. 

 

There were five, separate parts to the massive Quo habitat. The main one, the biggest one, was where most of the Quo lived, and where the main support and monitoring systems for the whole arcology were. The others were for research and experimentation, and for refining the various resources culled from the system, and for growing food. There were more system regulations scattered everywhere, and somehow, there was a propulsion system, but it hadn't been explained (again), and nothing Jensen had seen so far had looked like either engines or a skip-array. The Quo arcology was like a string of rough beads, plowing through the dust and radiation noise of the Giraffe in an orbit so wide it was five or six years, as humans reckoned, for it to come back around to the starting point again. 

They had graciously carved out a new space in the last asteroid-construct for the _Diaboli_ , adding surface blisters to make more space, and coaxing the bio-stuff, the _trees_ , to adapt to human light, and air, and temperatures. The armature of the Quo station - for that's what it was - was _alive_ , and Jensen wasn't quite over that, or how the Quo treated the living stuff as if it were _sentient_ , when Jared had assured him that no, trees really weren't. Maybe not, but then - how could anyone be sure?

Jensen patted the twisted, rope-like weaving that held the bubble-lift secure as it was whisked along a track that cut straight through the heart of every asteroid. Around him passed Quo machinery (half metal or the Quo equivalent of glassine, half bio-stuff), and then Quo farms, all low-grav rings upon rings of vegetation, and then, finally, he was in the main Quo arcology, with the tall, bulky outlines of the Quo themselves becoming more and more prevalent as he moved into the living spaces. 

The Quo were three or so meters tall, tall as an ANGEL in armor, their huge forms covered in long, coarse hair of black or green-tan or slatey grey-green-blue. Their wide, fringed shoulders and arms ended in three-fingered hands, with huge, curled claws each about as long as Jensen's forearm and wickedly sharp. Those claws mostly stayed curled up against their palms, though, and they used their elongated knuckles and a clawless kind of thumb to manipulate things. Their legs were short by comparison (though still a meter or more long), thick and bowed, and they walked in a kind of rocking shuffle that was damn fast. The wide body and neck tapered up to a strangely small skull, for their bulk. The hair there was sleek, sometimes striped with pale tan or white, and the ears were almost non-existent, tiny nubs that didn't move. Their eyes were large, though, and fringed with lashes, all one dark color and no pupil that Jensen had seen as yet, though he couldn't be sure. He didn't really like being that close. 

Their heads narrowed further to a long, tapering snout that ended in a small, very mobile mouth. Slits of nostrils sat about mid-way, and they used their mouths - and the long, long tongues inside - to handle delicate objects and to tap and swipe over the touch-sensitive screens of their computers and other tech. 

They didn't have gender. Or - they had the gender they _wanted_ to have; he or she or something that was both, and something that was nothing at all. It changed according to their need, or whim, or hormones - something. Some were always the same thing; some were always changing. Jensen mostly just stuck to 'they', in his head. It was less confusing.

They all wore simple, open vest-things, with wide-cut armholes and no collars or sleeves, thickly sewn over with curling, twisting, spiralling designs, or geometrics, in metallic or matte threads and little beads. The shimmer and sound of rippling, skirted cloth added to Jensen's unease, and the tails….

They had tails. Big, thick things that they used to balance on when they were at rest, leaning back on them like a third leg. In motion, the tail was free to sway and drag. One had knocked into Jensen, accidentally, of course, and the huge creature had ducked down, all liquid eyes and sibilant apologies, patting at him with the bony, elongated knuckles of its hand, its fireflies hovering and darting. The Quo had a scent, a sort of dry, musky smell that made Jensen's nose tickle, and he'd nodded and stepped away, fast, every instinct in him screaming to just get _away_. 

He'd felt sorry, after, because the Quo were determinedly and endlessly kind, and patient, and careful. But he just...couldn't help it.

 

The bubble-lift glided to a gentle halt at the last stop, and let Jensen out onto the main thoroughfare that led to obs-con. Humans would have hidden that - observation and control - deep in the heart of the massive asteroid, to insure its protection, but the Quo had put it at the very bow of their strange station, with a huge viewport.

Easily fifteen meters high by twice that long, it was a window to the system, shielded against radiation and particles, but beyond the centimeters-thick material, you could see...so much. The vast, curling arms of the system itself, dust and rocks swept into rings by roving planetoids and planets and comets. Fluttering, here-and-gone sheets of pastel colors made by gas and radiation emissions. And, light-years off, the curved, impossible _nothing_ of the massive black hole at the heart of the Giraffe, visible only by its absence, the doppler effect making it glow a lurid sort of orange-amber. 

You could, if you stood still long enough, looking, see their movement through space; see the jumbled mess of the system drift past as the arcology powered through it. You could watch star formations move and drift away behind them, Jensen was sure, but their progress was slow in the vastness of the system, and for the moment, the view from the port was mostly the same as it had been when Jensen had last been up there, almost a week before.

Then, it had been a mostly empty space, the night cycle for the Quo, when only a few crew were on task, and Jensen and Jared had been accompanied by Eiko Sakaguchi. She was a lean, quiet _Diaboli_ woman a few inches taller than even Jared; stretched out by a life lived in less-than-Earth-normal gravity. She was thin as a bone, her pale face and arms seamed by scars from some long-ago explosion, her black hair streaked with pure white. She was the leader, the Ma'am, of the _Diaboli_ at the Giraffe. _Taichou-san_ , they called her, with quiet respect, and Jensen found her obvious ease of command reassuring. Ex-military, for sure.

Stepping into obs-con, Jensen looked around, taking stock. It was the main day-cycle for Quo and humans alike, so the whole, huge area was teeming with busy, bustling figures. _Taichou-san_ was there, along with some of the other arcology _Diaboli_. Doc was there, too, and Raleigh, and the Jo boys, looking stoic. And Jared was there, the sense of him in the 'net still quiet, and calm, but one look at his face and Jensen felt his heart kick, adrenalin sweeping him.

Something was happening, something probably not good.

Jensen strode across the vaulted space, sidestepping knots of tense humans as they muttered together, and making wide berths around the many, many Quo. There were at least fifty, maybe more. Most were going about their tasks at various floating, palely-lit consoles, calmly absorbed, some with fairly large numbers of hovering, darting fireflies around them. Some were standing with the humans.

There wasn't a lot of noise; any Quo gathering was eerily quiet, to humans. A lot of Quo communication was infrasonic and ultrasonic - frequencies too low or too high for most humans to hear - but the sounds caught at Jensen's brain like the reward-sounds had, back in quarters, back on the _Tiamat_. Frequencies that had triggered little serotonin bursts in the ANGELs, and though they didn't do that now, his body still _expected_ them to. Or something. All Jensen knew was that the trilling and burring sounds, almost more sensation than noise, that came from a group of Quo made him go hot-cold and jittery, a tickling under his skin that was hard to ignore. Jared could hear it, too, though it wasn't the same for him; there were no memories attached. To him, the noises they made were just little hums and shrills and ticks, meaningless but not distracting.

Now, Jared looked up from the softly-lit surface of a console, his gaze finding Jensen, the 'net surging with a momentary flood of _good happy want safe need come here_. And then he steadied himself, and lifted his chin, shoulders squaring, as Jensen finally made his way around the last knot of Quo and humans, and fetched up at Jared's side.

_Taichou-san_ gave him a small nod, the epicanthal fold of her dark eyes making Jensen think of Sinna. Doc and Raleigh drifted over from the group they'd been in, and the Jo boys followed, gathering around. Waiting, it seemed, for something.

_What what what_ , Jensen asked, and Jared shrugged, nudging against him, his long-fingered hand catching Jensen's and wrapping around, holding on. 

_Something's coming_ , Jared thought, and said, "I'm not sure. The Quo - the...obs-con shift leader - said they'd detected something in skip space. Something big. About five-thousand light years out, coming...here."

_Ship?_

"They don't know, not yet, they're...trying."

"They're only reading energy and motion, at the moment," Doc said, the clear lenses of her scanner glasses reflecting the pale colors of the console, shielding her expression from Jensen. "Whatever it is, it's in skip, coming in hard." Which could be a ship, or could be something a ship had boosted - rocks, ice, anything. Something shoved down the line at them, going faster-than...they'd be nothing but a brief flare of energy and debris, if they were hit.

"They can scan skip space?" Jensen muttered, shying away from _those_ images before Jared got them, and Doc just shrugged, her lips tight, her hands jammed down into the pockets of her white coat.

_Can't we?_ from Jared, and Jensen squeezed his hand.

_No. It's like...you're behind a door. Or in another room. Can't see, can't hear, until you drop out._

_Huh. Kane okay? Morgan?_

_All good, they're good,_ Jensen thought, and Jared crowded in a little closer, feeling the residual chill of the med bays through the 'net, wanting to drive it away. 

A knot of Quo, that had been in a loose circle near the center of the room, suddenly began to move, shuffling in their waddling gait toward _Taichou-san_ and the _Diaboli_. Their consoles drifted along with them, and the fireflies surrounding them dove and darted, some zipping away to other Quo, some seeming to settle on a Quo's shoulders or neck or skull, like droplets of mobile, glowing water. The 'sonic vibration-noises seemed more intense, the closer they came. 

Most of the Quo stopped a couple of meters away, to Jensen's vast relief, but one kept coming all the way to their group. After a moment, Jensen realized he knew them; mostly it was the vest-thing they wore, this one done in a distinctive pattern of geometrics in coppery greens and dark blues and pale, pinkish tans. They were the head of the obs-con, and one of the oldest Quo on the arcology staff, though not the oldest Quo on the station; over two-hundred, in human years. Jensen felt himself shuffling a little closer to Jared, and Jared's 'net was full of _calm_ and _I'm here_ , warm and comforting.

This Quo's name, to human ears, was a sort of sobbing, hissing sigh, with a grating little 'sonic growl in the middle, and it was impossible to reproduce from a human throat. _Taichou-san_ called them _Hakase_. Doc said it meant 'Professor'. Jared said _that_ meant 'teacher'.

"Hakase," _Taichou-san_ said, inclining forward in a little bow, and the Quo bobbed their head at her, the fireflies all hovering just behind, like a halo of blue-white motes.

" _Taichou-san_ ", they said, though it sounded more like _oohbaahsssan_ , with a strange little choking click in the middle. "Ssignal iss closse," they said, tapping at something on the console that had floated along. "Many ssuch."

"Many...signals?" Doc hazarded, and the Quo gave that little jaw-lift that meant _yes_.

"How many?" Jensen asked, and the dark, liquid gaze of the Quo settled on him, head tipping to one side and then the other as the fireflies shifted around, and a few others joined, settling lightly and then drifting up, blinking.

"Uone...tree...many. _Su, su, su_ ," Hakase said, and more fireflies darted up, brightening and then darkening as they transferred whatever information they carried to the Quo.

"How many is...many?" Jensen asked, and his heart was pounding, thumping in his chest, making his lungs hitch when he dragged in the cool, Quo-scented air. Jared leaned into him, shoulder to shoulder, and Jensen took a deliberately deep breath.

"Many-many-many," they said. Another firefly darted over, yellow-white-blue, and the Quo blinked and hummed, a 'sonic note that made Jensen grit his teeth. "Ssoldier-shhip."

" _Fuck_ ," Jensen said, and winced at the sudden, crushing grip of Jared's hand. Doc and Raleigh immediately took a step or two away, Doc's hand fluttering up to the tiny throat-mic on her neck, both of them talking, low and urgent, to _Diaboli_ not in obs-con. _Taichou-san_ merely looked grim, one of her lieutenants standing nearby, typing rapidly into his own floating console.

_Is it…? Are they…?_ Jared's thoughts were a jumble; images of the Fleet, Marines and Company suits, people and Quo running, fire and smoke. Jensen's memories from the _Glorianna_ were tangled in there, and the mess of the _Tiamat_ and the _Nebuchadnezzar_ coming out of skip-space. _Panic_ too, and _anger_ at himself for the panic.

Jensen leaned into him, hard, physically and in the 'net. _No, no, not happening, safe, we're safe, calm, calm, calm_

"Sorry, fuck, I'm sorry," Jared whispered, and Jensen just kept it up, fingers laced with Jared's, touching from thigh to shoulder, keeping himself _calm_ , so Jared could do the same. 

The fireflies around Hakase darted away, and they leaned in close over their console, knuckles tapping, and the long, blue-grey tongue licking out to swipe over this and that section, thin lips pursing out to touch here and there, as well, on much smaller areas the bony knuckles were too big to accurately manipulate. 

"Is there an ID?" Jensen asked, and Hakase glanced his way. "Do they say, uh, who they are? Names?" Jensen clarified, and the Quo stilled for a moment, nose wrinkling, little chain of creases all up the thin-skinned, soft-furred length. Several fireflies blinked rapidly and darted away, to come zooming back just as quickly; a dozen, maybe more. And then more, and more - seemingly all the fireflies on the whole deck, coalescing around Hakase, pulsing blue to blue-white to white, whispering their information into Hakase's ears, their skin, their _bones_.

The 'sonic hum of them made Jensen wince and back off one step, and then two, trying to get away from the rising, hissing sound that made his skeleton seem to throb in time, his skin flush hot-cold-hot, tingling. 

_What what what_ from Jared, and then the fireflies all dimmed, as one, to almost nothing, swarming in so close they nearly obscured Hakase's entire head. Their console chimed, low and soft, and then a little louder. The fireflies, with an almost audible _snap_ , flared to a painful incandescence, scattering like an explosion, flying away to their respective Quo, leaving Hakase standing there, swaying gently, their dozen or so usual fireflies sinking down, as if exhausted, to rest on Hakase's neck and shoulders. Hakase leaned down, bending over, the tip of the long nose maybe half a meter from Jensen and Jared, and they both froze, staring upward.

" _Aaahn-gulssss_ " Hakase said, and Jensen felt as if every ounce of blood in his body had just drained away, leaving him ice-cold and dazed. 

_ANGELs_.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR ON FLUFFY KITTENS...I'm not doing this on purpose. I really did think one more chapter would be it.... Sorry, guys! If anybody is still out there...*taps screen*. :)
> 
> The song Jared hums is [The Dark and the Rolling Sea](https://youtu.be/LhZFUCK-H8s) by Al Stewart.
> 
> As always - any polish and gloss is down to Darkhavens.

_Give me back my young brother, hard_  
_and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse_  
_for God and burning eyes that look upon_  
_all creation and say, You can have it._

_You Can Have It_ \- by Philip Levine 

 

 

Jared came ghosting back from a visit to the head, doing his best to stay out of the way in the uncanny quiet of the Quo obs-con. It seemed as if every human on the Quo arcology was in a state of low-key panic. The Quo, on the other hand, only seemed confused by the panic and, in trying to impart some measure of calm, were making some people _more_ nervous. Jensen, in particular, was not happy to have gentle, concerned Quo hovering over him and trying, the Quo way, to be soothing.

Soothing, to a Quo, was shuffling up close and tucking long, flexible noses into chests or necks, arms tucked around ribs and claws gently scritching down backs. Only Raleigh, for some unknown reason, seemed to like it. Everyone else stood stiffly, and Jensen just skittered from place to place in the obs-con, doing his best to stay out of the long-armed reach of any Quo. 

It did make him look a little…

_I look crazy. I know. Can't help it,_ Jensen thought, his physical aversion coming through the 'net like particularly annoying com-link static, all squeal and feedback. It made Jared twitch right along with Jensen, but he did his best not to twitch _away_ from the Quo, who didn't really understand that being enveloped in half a ton or more of overheated, hairy, alien biped wasn't exactly comforting.

_Not crazy. It's fine. Anything?_ Jared asked, skirting a knot of _Diaboli_ and a lone Quo and finally coming to rest beside Jensen, who was standing stiffly by the viewport, keeping a wary eye on the crowd. A firefly or two drifted around him, but they didn't seem to be doing anything more than keeping an eye? out.

"Not yet," Jensen said, _relief_ and _come here_ in the 'net, and Jared happily crowded into him, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Hakase is trying to see how many ships, exactly."

"How many _are_ there?" Jared wondered, and got a flashing list through the 'net, a jumble of statistics and technical information and troop strengths that meant almost nothing to him. Just...overload; Jensen, in panic mode and trying not to be, reverting to Squad Leader out of sheer habit.

_Slow down_ , Jared thought, and Jensen took a long, shaky breath.

"Sorry. There's...thirty five ArchANGEL ships total. Troops and crew is five hundred per ship, but that's medevac and drop-ship crews and all. Just Angels - four-hundred and thirty-two."

"Okay, so, that's...that's - over fifteen thousand Angels," Jared said, and he felt cold all over, suddenly. Cold, and his heart was pounding wildly. Fifteen _thousand_ ArchANGEL troops, armed and armored and hyped on go-paks. Coming right at them. _Holy...fuck_

"No, no, fuck, Jared. No." Jensen was staring at him, a hard grip on Jared's neck, fingers running up into his hair, his thumb just rubbing at the point of Jared's jaw. "No, Jared. First, it's not all of them. It would- It would never be all of them. There's still Stick bases out there, there's- Fuck, it's not all, okay?" 

Jared gulped, nodded, and then leaned in, pressing his forehead to Jensen's. "Okay, so, not all. Okay."

"And...the _Nebuchadnezzar_ and the _Tiamat_ are...here. So take them out of the equation." 

"Yeah, okay," Jared said, brief cascade of images through the 'net, of Kane and Jinx and Malik, of Sinna and Sous and Morgan; of still, pale bodies in a chilly twilight.

_Forever_ , Jensen thought, and then stopped that thought cold. 

Jared dipped down and kissed him. _No, not, stoppit_ , he thought, wrapping himself around Jensen and kissing him for all he was worth; making the damn 'net - and Jensen's brain - just go to a warm, buzzing null for a moment. Respite, for both of them, because Jared was _Diaboli_ \- had been for years - but _behind_ the scenes. He could pry his way into data spots and comp systems, he could forge ident and money cards, he could sabotage a damn skip-array, if he had to. But that had all been in secret, in hidden warrens the _Diaboli_ had carved out. Or he'd been the pretty on the make, luring in this or that mark, getting them to talking and then to thinking, before someone else would take over. He'd never been on the bleeding edge of any part of the work; never seen death and desperation like he had when they'd jumped with the _Nebuchadnezzar_ trying to kill them.

He’d never been that close to his own death. 

And now, with Jensen in his head...Jensen's memories, his knowledge, his fears, his wants…. It was so damn _much_ , and most of it was nothing he'd ever trained for, and he felt _useless damn useless, so fucking scared, so stupid_

_No_ , came right back at him, Jensen's fingers clenching tighter for a moment. _No, not, **Jared** -_ The 'net opened wide, with a flood of emotions and thoughts and images, most of them making Jared out to be...so much better than he was. So much more. _True, all of it, true, it is, **hear me** , Jared, this is you_, Jensen insisted, and his mouth under Jared's went fierce and hungry, insisting with every part of him that Jared _believe_.

_I don't know what I'm doing_ , Jared thought, helpless; angry at himself for twisting it all around and making Jensen feel like he had to deal with _Jared_ , on top of everything else. And deal with him in a way that was totally outside his comfort zone. He was a damn soldier, not a therapist.

"I can be fucking...comforting," Jensen growled, breaking off from their kiss to glare at Jared, and Jared blinked at him for a moment and then let out a half-choked laugh. "I'm _damn_ comforting, Jensen said, and he looked so outraged and furious that Jared laughed for real, this time, and yanked him back in, going for a kiss that would make Jensen's knees go weak. Or his own, whichever, because that, yeah, right there, that was-

_Yes yes yesyes_ , a flood of acceptance, want, positive, just _Yes_ , in every way possible, and everything else just slid away for a long moment. Nothing but them, their heartbeats, their bodies, their minds, until there was a shuffling sound behind them, and then they were both enveloped in the heavy, too-warm arms of a Quo, shaggy hair tickling their skin and the distinctive, bitter-musk smell in both their noses.

_Get it off, off, off, fuck!_

"Hey, okay, it's okay," Jared said, a little muffled. He did the shoulder-roll-hitch thing that some of the _Diaboli_ had figured out signaled 'enough', and the Quo's arms (arms like both Jared's thighs combined, heavy with corded muscle) briefly tightened and then let go, the Quo shuffling backward.

_Maybe if we quit climbin' on each other, they'd quit thinking it was okay_ , Jensen thought, and for a moment he felt fragile and shaky in the 'net. Utterly vulnerable.

"Nah, fuck that," Jared said. He let go and turned, keeping his arm around Jensen's waist, to see what Quo it was, and what they wanted. This Quo was fairly dark, with a pale dappling on the velveteen fur of its face and throat. Their coat, however, was brilliant with looping spirals of bright green and yellow-green and blue, with flashing white and silvery beads and threads. Some of the same beads and threads had been woven into the longer fur of the Quo's shoulders and upper arms, so it seemed they almost wore a chitinous armor. 

After a moment, Jared relaxed. He recognized this Quo; _she_ , because she'd made a point to say so, and one of the _Diaboli_ \- her name was Alinx - said she was doing the equivalent of mate-hunting. She wanted to bear, and so had shifted into fertile 'she' mode, which meant she was rather brash and flashy, showing off herself and her skills, so as to attract a good partner.

It meant she made a little more noise than Quo usually did, and her back-curved claws were sheathed in a filigree of dull-pewter metal that, Alinx assured Jared, rippled with an oil-slick sheen to Quo eyes. Her fireflies were in hues of red-gold, pinks, and silvery-whites, and seemed a little more excitable, to Jared. 

She's also chosen a human-word for her name, something the younger Quo had enjoyed. They seemed to simply go on how the word sounded, never mind the meaning. This Quo was called _Shoumei_. Alinx - Jared's source for all things Quo - said it was a kind of tea.

"Shoumei," Jared said, nodding up at the Quo, who was peering at Jensen as if she could sense his unease. She shuffled back another step, a meter or so, and Jared felt Jensen relax a little next to him. "Is there news?"

" _Su, su, su_ ," Shoumei said. "Whhee ghut tha."

"You...what?" Jared said, trying to pull English out of the sibilants and 'sonic trills that seemed to sneak in no matter what. 

"Ahnn-gulss. Whee - vvring hhere. Ziss!" Her hand came up, fingers half-open, the gleaming claws spread out, and made a kind of cupping, curling motion, pulling her hand into her chest. 

"You're going to-? You're bringing the Angel ships here?"

_Su, su, su,_ Shoumei said, bobbing a little in that way that meant she was pleased. "Sships in-" She made a sound that meant on the bubble, in faster-than space. "Whee taak herrre."

"What?" Jensen straightened away from Jared with a jerk, the 'net blaring out a chaotic tangle of emotion and images, and just as quickly shutting down to almost nothing, an excited buzz that made Jared's heart pound a little faster. "You're going to-? They're in _skip space_ , how can you-? What-?"

"Hold on," Jared said, echoing in the 'net, because Shoumei was curling her long nose under, her fireflies zipping in furious arcs around her head. She was getting agitated from Jensen's obvious agitation, and Jared really didn't want that to happen.

"Slow down, hold on, just...Shoumei. The Angels ships, they're in skip space. The Quo- You can...bring them here, out of that space? How can you do that?"

Shoumei tipped her head from side to side, thinking. The fireflies settled and then a few darted away. More came back, settling on her fur like a corona, and she made a little growling, hissing, 'sonic noise in her throat. 

" _Su, su, su_. Shhipsss herrre." She held up one massive hand about a meter above Jared's head. "Wheee herrre," she continued, holding up her other hand. "Wheee mhhak hhole, ssso, vvring - ziss! Pooohl."

"You're going to make a hole and pull them here out of faster-than," Jensen said, his voice absolutely flat, and Shoumei bobbed, the tip of her tongue making a little ' _ppbbbt_ ' noise against her lips.

" _Su, su, su._. Ee-zhha. Uuo ssee." She bobbed at them a couple more times, and then a handful of new fireflies came over, glimmering bright blue-white and green, and she turned and moved off, _burring_ to herself.

"Jensen, can they-? Is that...even...possible?"

"Fuck if I know. Can't fucking be," Jensen said. The 'net was alive again, information and images and technical stuff Jensen knew, but couldn't really explain to Jared, or even himself. "Fuck, I wish Jinx were here," he said, and Jared felt the helpless anger and longing from him, and the frustration at himself. _Sorry_.

_Don't need to be._ "Let's go find Raleigh or Alinx. Somebody's got to know what the hell's going on. Okay?"

Jensen reached up and curled his fingers in the hair behind Jared's ear, scrubbing with his fingertips for a moment, tugging at the long hair there when Jared turned his cheek into Jensen's wrist. _Love you, c'mon, it's okay_

"Yeah, okay," Jensen said. _Love you too_

 

 

"So, why not just wait until they get here? I mean, they're coming here already, right?" Jared asked, and Jensen sent him a little push of warmth in the 'net, because normally, it would be a really good question. Just...Jared didn't know enough about ships, and the skip, to really _get_ it.

"They are," Alinx said. She was tapping her fingers furiously on a floating console, one adapted for humans, but which still had some Quo icons around the edges. "But if we _let_ them come, they come in mostly where they want, yah? At the speed they want, at the vector they already determine. Put us on the back foot, yah?"

"Okay," Jared said, in that tone of voice that meant he was waiting for the explanation.

"Quo do it this way, they put them where _we_ want. Full stop, yah?"

"They can do that?" Jared said, practically at the same time that Jensen said;

"How are they going to do that without killing them?" Because a ship in faster-than, going from light+ velocity to nothing...the crew would be paste, full stop.

Alinx shrugged, tapped something else, and waved her fingers at a firefly that had come drifting over. They seemed attracted to certain people, even if they weren't carrying a message; Jensen was deeply grateful _he_ wasn’t one of those people. The firefly appeared to be hopping along the trail of little glittering sequins that decorated Alinx's headscarf.

"They say not. Quo say, when they open the vector, it's this huge power-drain, and then they tap the velocity of the skip to keep the vector open. I think it might even kill the skip-array, how they do it. Anyway, it's like they just...go from skip to stop without anything in between, and all the velocity is gone, yah?" 

"But- how are they going to find them? I mean...they're in _skip_ ; how do they even locate them?" Jared asked, the 'net a welter of confused half-questions, muddled thoughts, sheer exasperation. Jensen nudged him a little, and Jared leaned back, still frowning.

"Quo is Quo, it's what they do, yah?" Alinx said, flipping her hand up for a moment in a gesture that was pure spacer, and probably completely lost on Jared.

_Means it's a mystery_.

"Yah," Jensen said, and turned away from Alinx toward the port, and the drifting, blazing stars. All of that sounded...completely impossible. It sounded like the kind of shit they used to tell tales about in quarters; about planets made of diamond and ships that could skip fifty gravity wells in an eye-blink. Ships that never came _down_ from the Between, but ghosted along in faster-than, crying out in the ultra-space, calling for help, or singing a warning….

Stories they used to tell about the Quo, sometimes; ships that flew without an array, or that never flew at all, just folded space around them, moving without moving, shifting reality to shift themselves…. Fuck. Here he stood, on the deck of a Quo archology that, before he'd met Jared, he'd have dismissed as ridiculous fantasy.

_But here we are_ , Jared thought, and Jensen could feel him, coming to stand behind Jensen, and a little to his left. On his six, pivot-man, shield.

_Not a soldier_ , Jensen thought, apologizing, and Jared made a little sound, a sort of strangled laugh.

_Might have to be_ , he thought. His hand came to rest on Jensen's back, between his shoulderblades, heavy and warm, and Jensen's shoulders eased back down, making him sigh a little as he relaxed.

_Hope not_.

A firefly darted up just then, chiming rapidly, and Jensen felt all his tension come back hard; a sudden, bone-deep clench in every muscle.

" _Ns'ssu_?" Jared said, and the firefly flashed purple-white, bright and fast. 

" _ **Iynght srahzss**_ ," it said, the untranslatable word that meant whatever the Quo were doing to yank who knew how many Angel troop ships out of the Between. " _ **Iynght srahzss** will commence in thirteen minutes. Please find a secure place to wait. Thirteen minutes on count now_ ," the firefly said, and Jensen felt the sudden scatter of energy and emotion from Jared. Panic and excitement and wonder and something that was like anger, but not _quite_. It all pulsed through him like a hit of ultrasound, like a hard blast of heat.

Then he was doing his best to pull it back, tamp it down, and fuck, but Jensen was so damn… _impressed_ with him. So fucking amazed.

" _Chugn_ ," he told the firefly, which was starting to repeat itself, and it darted away. "Jared," he said, and then stopped, instead yanking Jared close to hold onto him. He let the 'net go, wide open, drawing Jared in deep and letting him feel everything, hear everything, _know_ everything: Jensen's own panic and anger and regret and need; his own desperate longing for his Angels and his bone-deep, rock solid trust in Jared. His love for him.

"God," Jared said, both in the 'net and out loud - a little shaky, a little uncertain. "God, you are-" Jared crushed Jensen close for a long moment, and the emotional storm in the 'net seemed to settle, knots unsnarling and rough spots becoming smooth, cacophony becoming cadence as they slowly, steadily aligned.

Another firefly pulsed at them, the chime faster and faster, and Jensen gave Jared a last, hard hug; sent a last pulse of _warm safe good you me us_ to him. Then he straightened up, and followed the firefly to their designated safe space.

 

They counted down, and to Jensen it seemed that not much was happening. The humans in obs-con all looked jumpy, or, like Raleigh and a couple of the arcology _Diaboli_ , excited. Jensen just felt sick. There didn't seem to be any readying of weapons, or mustering of troops. Jensen knew - but just hadn't really believed, until this moment - that the Quo didn't fight. Didn't _attack_ , didn't threaten, didn't even really defend, unless you counted dedicated obscurity for millennia as 'defending'. The Quo probably did.

So they were facing who knew how many troop ships - _ANGEL_ ships - with nothing but some of the more hard-core _Diaboli_ , and table knives, and Jensen himself. All the Angel weapons really only worked with the armor, and the stuff the crew had had - some hand guns, some knives - had all gone into a lockdown room that only Quo could get into. 

So, they were defenseless.

Jared's hand was laced with his, and Jensen squeezed it tightly, relenting as soon as he felt the wince in the 'net, and then grinned when Jared squeezed back, just as hard. The console in front of them counted down to the slanted oblong that was the Quo zero, and then everything seemed to...stop. Without actually stopping. Jensen didn't feel any different, exactly, but even the low background noise of the quiet Quo seemed to have stopped completely, and the light- 

_It's frozen. There's something-_

Jared was feeling it, too, and Jensen watched as everything around them seem to flicker for a moment. A bare second - less - when everything seemed to be coming apart into its essential elements; every atom glowing or vibrating or spinning to its own rhythm; every solid thing suddenly smoke, every color too bright and then weirdly dim. Under it all, so low it was pressure, tension, _push_ , was a throb, like a single heartbeat of the universe. Deafening, all-encompassing, crushing them. 

_Wrong wrong wrong, Jensen?_

_Okay, we're okay, we're-_ "It's fine," Jensen said, and then everything was, snapping back to normal as if nothing had happened at all. Except that now, on the console, was a slowly-blooming nebula of light and energy; the vector, opening into skip-space, into the Between.

Jensen had a purely instinctive reaction to shield his eyes, to look _away_ , as if what he might see there was forbidden, or maybe even deadly. Jared, he could tell, had no such fear; he was craning forward, looking at the console and then looking out the vast port, as if he could see it. But the vector was opening at least a hundred-thousand k distant from them, if not more, and toward the nadir of the arcology. 

_We're not close enough_ , Jensen thought, knowing there was an undercurrent of relief there, and Jared slumped a little, but then leaned in toward the console instead. 

"Fuck, look at that, it's huge," Jared breathed, and Jensen scanned the information the Quo had oh-so-considerately included with the image: size, distance, energy used, the dimensions of the 'hole', for lack of a better word, that they were making. It made his head spin and his stomach lurch, so he looked at the image instead.

Light was curling and twisting and bending back on itself, sending out hair-fine plumes of radiation or energy or decay. It seethed and knotted, twisting and expanding until it filled most of the console. The center was a burning pinprick, an open hole into a space so brilliantly lit it was hard to look at.

And the pinprick was growing. The size of a drop of water, then a fingertip, then larger; expanding more rapidly as it grew, until suddenly the entire screen flared, actinic brilliance, enough for Jared and Jensen both to flinch away, ducking, eyes squinting shut. Little gasps and cries came from all over the obs-con, and then it was fading, contracting, shifting down through the spectrum, flattening and fluttering and shredding away into the blackness until there was nothing there at all.

Almost nothing.

"There they are," Jensen breathed, as Quo lidar lit up the incoming ships with pulses of laser light. Stripped of their skip velocity and possibly without any power other than trim jets, the ships would be days coming in. Days that they would have, at least, to prepare; to plan. The console took on a life of its own for a moment, shifting different windows and menus and suddenly the lidar image was bigger, more solid, taking up the whole screen. Showing each ship individually.

"One, two, three- Fuck." Jared's finger was hovering over each ship, as if he was afraid he'd miscount, but Jensen had already seen, already calculated.

"Thirteen. There are thirteen of them. Fucking...shit, fucking _hell_ , _thirteen_."

"Jensen!" somebody yelled, and Jensen twisted around, looking. It was Alinx, standing in a little knot of Quo. "Jensen, to your com three, you'd better get on that," she said, her deep-set, dark eyes glued to her own console, her hands flying. The fireflies were like a fog, all around them.

"Shit, what now, how do I-?"

"Here," Jared said, reaching past him, tapping something on the console, and suddenly a window opened, a com line. It was a false-color image, weird shades of blue-grey and grey-white, ghosty and full of interference, something that might be the outline of a person at a com station. Feedback made orange-white lines zig-zag over the image, and the only sound was a hissing, spitting mess of static.

Then it cleared with a hiss and a pop, the image clearer but still grainy, dark; the ship station seemed to be illuminated with emergency spots, leaving most of the view a muddle of shadow. The audio was coming in a little hollow, with an undercurrent of echo. The crewman's voice was ragged, exhausted sounding.

" _Mayday, mayday, mayday. To any ship or station in range. This is the United Stellar Federation ship **Xevioso** , Ensign James Urbin reporting._" The man on the screen looked jump-sick, gaunt and pale, dark hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. There was a slur of drugs in his voice, and he was sitting awkwardly, one arm tucked tight against his ribs, as if he were hurting.

" _Our convoy has lost all power and are adrift. Navigation and propulsion are out convoy-wide, life support is failing in seven ships, and we have medical emergencies on eleven ships. We-_ " The man speaking seemed to lose his way for a moment, one hand coming up, shaking, to rub across his mouth. His formality, his forced calm, cracked. " _We need help. Please, we-_ "

Jensen couldn't stand it. "How do I talk to them, Jared? How-?"

"Here, just-" Jared reached across, touched something on the console, and a little glowing triangle lit up, casting a soft scatter of light onto Jensen's face. "Now talk." Jensen watched the _Xevioso_ crewman react, the signal reaching him faster than Jensen was anticipating. 

_Fucking...hell_

_Good, you're good, you're fine_ , from Jared, and Jensen straightened, taking a quick breath.

"USF _Xevioso_ , this is-" This was _what_? They weren't a ship, they weren't a planet, they were a myth. Would he believe the _Quo_ had yanked them out of skip? Would Urbin - would any of them - believe they weren't hostile? Fuck, shit, and damnit. "This is Corporal Jensen AR, call sign _Qemuel_ , ArchANGEL to the USF _Tiamat_ -"

" _ **Tiamat**? Holy fuck!_ " Urbin seemed electrified, straightening with a grimace, eyes wide. " _LT, we found them! Hey, we found them!_ " Urbin was yelling, looking somewhere to his left, and a moment later, other people - another man, a woman, someone in some kind of armor or maybe an evac suit - were crowding around the console, indistinct in the grain and shadow. 

" _Xevioso_ , what do you mean?" Jensen was aware of the same thing happening on his end; people were crowding around, jostling to look over his shoulders, though they were perfectly capable, he was sure, of seeing what was going on on their own consoles. Even a couple of Quo - Shoumei, for sure, and one other, a startling, almost-pure white - were looming in the background, humming. Jensen shuddered, and forced them out of his awareness, grateful for what was basically the white-noise of Jared's hyper brain helping to block them out.

" _We've been- Fuck, we...we've been looking for you. We came- We were-_ " Urbin was stuttering, hands waving wildly, and the person in the back - helmetless evac suit, ripped open across one shoulder - leaned in and put their hands on the man's shoulders, squeezing with bulky, gloved fingers. Urbin leaned back with a shuddering sigh, and the woman leaned in, as gaunt as Urbin, pale hair in a messy knot at the nape of her neck, the glint of a metal stud in one broad nostril.

" _ **Tiamat** , this is Lieutenant Calypso Dee. We mutinied. Us, the **Hissa Hila** and the **Apsû**. The fucking Company…._ " She made a particular spacer hand-sign, and Jensen grinned. 

_FUBAR, that's...totally fucked. Beyond help,_ , Jensen thought, and Jared sent a little laugh through the 'net.

" _We ran, and we kept picking up strays. **Wuriupranili** said you took out the **Nebuchadnezzar** , the **Seker** said you talked them over to your side. All we knew for sure was that both of you were gone, out of Company control, and that you were alive. We got a half-dozen of your old crew-mates here, mustered in after your crew mutinied._ " She seemed to flag for a moment, leaning heavily on the console of the station, wiping a long strand of greasy-looking hair back from her cheek.

" _We've been chasing you for...three years...our supply lines were getting thin, getting cut...old caches and dumps were depleted, we were...damn desperate. Found the ghost of your skip-trail...maybe five months back, **Tiamat** , and we just… We were hoping like hell you had a plan, or a safe dock. We had to slave eight of us to do this last jump. We're running shakey, **Tiamat** , and our Angels…. We need help._"

"You'll get it, Lt. Dee, fucking swear, everything you need. It's not- We're not a ship, we're a station here, a fucking arcology. We'll do whatever we can,"Jensen said. He looked up from the console, at the clustered knot of people and Quo. "Alinx, Taichou-san. Tell me what we're doing; we need to get them here _now_."

"We got it, we're on it, let me-" Alinx shouldered through the crowd, a handful of fireflies on her head like a crown. Her assistant - a tall, thin boy of unguessable age, loaded down with consoles and data spots and a couple fireflies, as well - was right behind her, fingers flying over several things at once.

" _Xevioso_ , I'm senior com here on the arcology. We're going to tractor you in. Get all hands buckled in and settled, we're in count already. When we pull, you're gonna feel it, a _g_ at least. You've got twenty minutes."

" _That's gonna hurt some of us, ma'am, we've got some pretty fragile people right now,_ " Dee said, hope warring with worry in her expression.

"Right, okay...Shoumei, we gotta ease up on that, yah? Gotta go lighter. We got you, _Xevioso_ , talk to Jensen." Alinx was already turning away, concentrating on her console, Shoumei coming to stand beside her, and Jensen saw Dee catch sight of the towering Quo.

" _Holy fuck, **Tiamat** , what in hell are you into?_" she said, and Jensen shook his head, looking over at Jared, completely at a loss for a coherent - and brief - way to explain...anything.

"Lieutenant, you are not going to fucking believe this…" 

 

The ships came in, caught in the ghostly bubble of the Quo tractor drive. It took thirty minutes - less - and Jensen stood by the port in the human arcology, watching as the graceful bulks of glassine, ceramic aluminum, and titanium-steel alloy were, one by one, nudged and hauled and pushed into position. Quo tugs and skimmers floated, like their fireflies, but much slower, easing the ships into dock beyond the entwined wreck of the _Tiamat_ and _Nebuchadnezzar_. 

On coms, Jensen listened as each ship reported docked, locked in, seals up and functioning even if, on more than one, those seals had to be manually forced. The _Xevioso_ first, then the ships whose life support was failing; the _Apsû_ , the _Hissa Hilla_ , _Ilya Muromets_ , _Wu Zetian_ , _Kanagatucko_ , _Tangaroa_ , and the _Svetovid_. _Sakayengwaraton_ and _Aquehua_ both had medical issues on board that had gone beyond critical, and the _Matangi_ and _Seker_ were starting down that same path. Only the _Wuriupranili_ seemed fairly stable, and that, they discovered after docking, wasn't because the crew was somehow better.

" _They're all sedated_ , the _Wuriupranili_ captain reported. " _Every last Angel on board. It was voluntary,_ " he added, catching the look Jensen was giving him through coms. " _We ran out of down-packs five or six skips back, and the pharmacy's empty. One of the drop-ship crew had a little...still going. They cooked up a sedative. It was that or casualties, **Tiamat**_ ", he said, and for the first time Jensen really _saw_ how skip-pale and thin the man was; how his hands were shaking as he hunted through a data spot for numbers, files, a cobbled-together report for the _Diablo_ and most especially, Doc and all her colleagues. 

" _You don't know...what they've done. The Company. They…_ "

"Save it for the briefing, _Wuriupranili_ ," Jensen said, forcing his voice to be calm. Professional. "You did what you had to do, I'm sure of it. Just...get your accesses open and let us in, we've got room for all of you; supplies, everything. You're safe."

" _I'd like to think so,_ ", the captain said, and then signed off, his voice ragged, eyes hollow from exhaustion and skip-drugs. None of the others were in much better shape; at least four others had followed _Wuriupranili's_ example and put their Angels into what amounted to a light coma, strapped in and rigged up with IVs and nutrient pumps for the long skips. That had its own attendant problems, though. Not every self-made 'pharmacist' was as good at cooking up drugs as the _Wuriupranili's_ seemed to be, and some of the Angels hadn't, after all, gone down willingly.

What shape those men and women would be in, once they were finally freed from that… Jensen shuddered, arms wrapped around his ribs, and reached out, clinging as discreetly as possible to the warm thrum of distracted affection from Jared. He was with the _Diaboli_ and Quo, helping to organize quarters, mess and infirmary space for the incoming thousands. A full complement, Angels, ship crew, dropship crew, and the medevac, would number five hundred; over six thousand souls, on those thirteen ships, ideally.

But individual and group mutinies hadn't been without losses, and whatever meddling the Company had been up to had taken out troops, too. The long, long game of hide-and-seek they'd been playing, the multiple jumps, dodging of regular Marine troopships and other, still-loyal Angel ships...had all taken their toll. By Lieutenant Dee's estimation, they were docking with a little over four thousand, and close to half of those had to go straight to some kind of medical facility more advanced than the ships could offer. 

It was, all in all, a huge, complicated, fucking mess, and Jensen wanted to stay in the isolated bubble of the port and the hall and the dim light; the soft whisper of the arcology trees. He didn't want to plunge into the chaos and the dying, the desperation, the _need_...that he couldn't fix. He was a fucking soldier - not even that! - and every person he'd talked to, on those thirteen ships out there, had spoken to him as if he were in charge. As if he knew what came next. As if he knew what to _do_.

He was fucking terrified.

_Okay, you're okay, it's fine, Jensen, Jensen_ , Jared thought, little warm pets and nudges through the 'net, and Jensen took a long, deep breath. _It's gonna take a while_ , Jared thought, amidst flashes of the chaos three levels down and in, toward the center of the human arcology. Hastily assembled beds, tables and chairs filled the mess; the Quo 3D printers and machine shops turning out what they needed as fast as possible. And while _Diaboli_ assembled and set up, the Quo actually took apart: disassembling bulkheads and moving walls so that the spaces opened up wider and wider. Halls and rooms became sprawling bays, interrupted only by the vast Quo trees that arched up and up, meters high, to form the interlaced ceiling. Those were immovable, but every partition, every station and dispensary and console dock and recycling bin could be uncoupled and moved, providing endless configurations.

It was something they'd long planned, but gradually, over time. As they'd hoped to talk and coax and lure a ship here, a squadron there, into the _Diaboli_ ; as they endeavored to undermine the Company with the vaccine. But now...it was happening faster than anybody had thought possible, and there was just so damn much to _do_.

The Quo had the resources, Alinx had assured them, when she'd hastily outlined to Jared what they were doing, Jensen listening in via the 'net. That wasn't the problem. They just needed time to get it all made, set up and working smoothly. They were already setting into motion the means to capture another, smaller asteroid and hollow it; do to it whatever the Quo had done to the others in the arcology, to be used for 'ponics and tanks and vats for human food, because that was the one area they would be a little stressed in, for a while.

Quo had a very specialized, very not-human-friendly diet, and there was no possibility of crossover there. And nobody wanted to live on protein-goo and reconstituted algae for any longer than they had to.

_I should come help_ , Jensen thought, but Jared pushed back firmly as he blew a loose strand of hair out of his face, rubbed his nose on his shoulder, and then sniffed. The new-monomer smell of the freshly printed Quo material made his nose itch. 

_No. You're **Tiamat**. They need to see you, talk to you. You're the one, Jensen; the Angels need you._

"Of course you'd say that," Jensen muttered, but he smiled at the earnestness in Jared's voice, and the shivery little throb of _believe_ in the 'net. 

Fortified, at least a little, Jensen brushed his hand back through the spiky hair he'd freshly clipped a day or two ago, and straightened his shirt-hem. He still had on at least three layers, but none of them were an oversized coat or two-meter long scarf, and his shirts at least fitted him, as did his trousers. He was presentable, if not outstanding.

He turned away from the port and strode down the hall, and into the small foyer where two lift-bubbles rode. He stepped into one and it sank, down and down, to the docking level. He had people to greet, and information to give and get, and if he did it right - if he kept his fucking head and didn't fall apart in some spectacular, messy way - he could at least be of some use. 

At least that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include a legend for all the ANGEL ships mentioned.
> 
> _Tiamat_ \- primodial Babylonian goddess of the salt sea  
>  _Nebuchadnezzar_ \- Babylonian emperor
> 
> _Apsû_ \- Tiamat's lover, the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld (Kur) and the earth (Ma) above  
>  _Aquehua_ \- Argentinian sun goddess  
>  _Svetovid_ \- Slavic god of war, fertility and abundance  
>  _Ilya Muromets_ \- Russian knight  
>  _Wu Zetian_ \- Chinese Empress Regent of the Zhou Dynasty  
>  _Xevioso_ \- Nigerian god of thunder  
>  _Sakayengwaraton_ \- Mohawk leader  
>  _Matangi_ \- Hindu goddess of spoken word and supernatural powers  
>  _Kanagatucko_ \- Cherokee leader  
>  _Hissa Hila_ \- Saudia Arabian poetess  
>  _Seker_ \- Egyptian falcon god  
>  _Tangaroa_ \- Māori god of the sea  
>  _Wuriupranili_ \- Northern Australian Aboriginal sun goddess
> 
> _Kanchinjínga_ \- mountain in Tibet  
>  _Clíodhna_ \- Queen of the Bain Sidhe  
>  _Æthere_ \- Primordial Greek god of the upper air, light, the atmosphere, space and heaven.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING, friends. A big, fat WARNING. The chapter opens with suicide and suicidal thoughts. See the end notes for more spoilery details.

_We thank with brief thanksgiving_  
 _Whatever gods may be_  
 _That no life lives for ever ;_  
 _That dead men rise up never ;_  
 _That even the weariest river_  
_Winds somewhere safe to sea._

_The Garden of Proserpine_ \- by Algernon Charles Swinburne

 

 

"We got another one! Jensen, Zahid, _move_ , F-bay, move, move, move!" Doc was shouting, an arcology medico was, too, and Jensen _moved_. He ran, dodging around milling and crouched and catatonic ArchANGELS and troopship crew; running, running across the broad expanse of the medical bay to the area designated 'F' and the Angel - an angular woman whose shaved head was covered in pale, silvery stubble - who was dying. Who was _killing herself_ , and using her platoon to do it. 

Jensen dove into the knot of troops around her, yanking on clothing and random limbs, propelling bodies out and away with brutal shoves, kicks, sometimes punches. The woman was lying half-on, half-off her gurney. Her throat was already bruising purple-blue-black; her mouth open, tongue protruding. Her eyes were open, glassy - lifeless - and Jensen lost his breath and his sight for a moment in a surge of white-hot fury.

"Get the fuck off her! Get _away_ from her, _fuck_!" Jensen hauled a last Angel away, spinning him into the arms of a _Diaboli_ , before being shoved aside in his turn by Doc. 

"Need a damn resuscitator here! Move it, let's _go_!" Doc said, her voice clipped and calm, her frame vibrating with tension. She took the woman's head in her hands, holding the neck carefully still as two other medicos and a _Diaboli_ carefully lifted the woman and got her flat on the gurney. One of the medicos took a cutter, the razor blade invisible, and sliced the front of the woman's shirt open, hem to throat. Jensen winced at the blooming bruises on her chest and ribs, where more of her platoon had been crushing her, throttling her. They were on the floor, now, spread around the gurney like so many corpses, trying to follow her into limbo, into darkness, elsewhere.

"Need to stabilize her spine. Fuck, get the damn cervical brace," Doc said.

"Got it, got it. Clear the gurney," a medico said as he swung the resuscitator out of its charging station, the long, articulated arm unfolding to support the weight of the machine. It was like a glassine and alloy ribcage, studded with sensors, mounted with a drug-pack. Tubes and lines snaked up the arm, able to carry oxygen, drugs, even blood, if needed.

"Here, get her neck." Doc moved her hands, a finger at a time, as the cervical brace - a beaded line of some kind of nano-polymers - looped itself around the Angel's swelling throat and expanded, a delicate lattice that could withstand over one hundred kilos of pressure. As it carefully nudged the woman's chin up, Doc slipped a gloved finger into her mouth to push her tongue back, away from her teeth, making it possible for the machine to insert a breathing tube without obstruction.

The resuscitator settled over the woman's head, neck, and upper chest. Long 'ribs' moved to close snugly around her, aligning the sensors for maximum contact. The status panel lifted, icons blinking, numbers shivering up and down the scale. Doc reached up and twisted it on its stem so she could read it more easily. Jensen, who had come to encased in a resuscitator more than once, back on Reveille (after trying exactly what this woman had tried), shuddered, his fists clenched and his gut churning. Fuck, how he hated this. From somewhere, a swarm of fireflies darted in, pulsing in reds and greens and amber-blues to white, swirling and diving. Jensen flinched from them, and several dashed away, the rest hovering, creating a miniscule hum that tickled in Jensen's brain.

Jared, far off in the new asteroid the Quo had captured, was strapped into a construction mecha, helping to assemble mammoth gro-tanks. He was focused, absorbed, enjoying the labor, and Jensen deliberately and carefully shut himself down until Jared would, if he pushed, get nothing but Jensen's presence. 

" _No respiration detected. No heartbeat detected,_ " the piping voice of the resuscitator said, crystal clear and emotionless. " _Prepping for cardiac shock. Intubating. Administering arrest solution. Charging cardiac shock. Please stand clear. Please stand clear._ "

"Clear, get clear," Doc said, lifting her hands, taking a half-step away from the gurney itself, the others following suit. The resuscitator hummed for a moment, a rising whine Jensen was sure no one else could hear, which abruptly cut off. The woman's body jolted in the articulated clench of the machine, and around them, so did her Angels, a ripple of shuddering jerks.

" _Cardiac shock administered. Scanning. No heartbeat detected. Prepping for cardiac shock. Administering beta-adrenal solution. Artificial respiration engaged. Please stand clear. Please stand clear._ "

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jensen muttered, and twitched aside from an Angel who was trying to pull him away. The _Diaboli_ were mostly keeping them back, but all of F-bay, and probably E and G as well, were milling closer. They conversed in agitated whispers, the choppy, half-formed sentences of people who didn't _need_ to speak aloud, mostly just to communicate with the Angels not in their 'net. They were getting too fucking close, pressing in, crowding the bodies on the floor and medicos, and this was going to be a problem, damn quick.

The shock passed through the Angels again, and a few of the ones on the floor made sounds: little groans, breathy hisses. Coming back, but fighting it.

There was a stir on the edge of the crowd, and Jensen saw that a Quo was coming in; two, no, three more following behind. A swarm of fireflies darted and dived all around them, probably the ones that had been in F-bay a minute ago. Almost certainly they had gone to get the Quo, who were steadily approaching in that rolling waddle that was comical to see, but was nearly unstoppable, clearing a path through the Angels.

As they drew closer, Jensen could feel his skin go tight, the hair on the back of his neck rising in response to the ultra- and infra-sonic waves, as loud as the Quo could make them. The milling crowd of Angels began to break up and move away, shoulders hunched, some lifting their hands up to cover their ears, which Jensen knew wouldn't help a damn bit. Jensen wanted to get the hell out, himself; just turn and _go_ , get away from the noise that wasn't even really a noise. Pressure and sensation and a swirling, staticky cloud of aversion and fight-flight, it made his heart pound.

The resuscitator made a weird noise, and Doc looked up, the lenses of her scan-glasses flashing for a moment, sheer white.

"Cut that, it's hurting her," Doc said, and the noise, the _hum_ from the Quo, cut off abruptly. 

" _Su, su, su,_ " one Quo said, and a firefly came to hover between them and the Angel. The resuscitator shocked the woman again, and Doc's mouth was a hard, straight line, nostrils flaring as she breathed.

"Apologies, Doctor," the firefly said, translating as the Quo whispered, its voice a little sibilant but perfectly clear. "Will the Angel recover?"

"I'm not sure, she- _There_ , there, we got her, okay," Doc said, as the resuscitator flashed a series of green tell-tales, and a little graph, an irregular spiky line, came up on the screen. 

" _Heartbeat detected. Sinus rhythm established. Administering analgesics. Administering post-arrest solution. Monitoring recommended. IV fluids recommended. Severe swelling of the throat detected. Bruising and trauma to the trachea and larynx detected. Breathing assistance recommended. Auto-Resuscitation GX-919 disengaging. Thank you for-_ " 

"Yes, fuck, enough," Doc said, tapping the audio off and watching, brows drawn down in a heavy scowl, as the machine uncoupled from the Angel, leaving the breathing tube in place. The medico who had originally gotten it out swung it back into its station, while another one pulled an oxygen tube from the rack over the gurney and attached it to the end of the one between the woman's teeth. A couple of latecomers and the _Diaboli_ were getting the rest of the Angels up off the floor and loading them onto gurneys, strapping them in, tying them down, and drugging them insensible. 

It was becoming a fucking pattern. It was becoming too damn _much_.

Jensen watched as the resuscitated Angel's chest rose and fell, slow and easy. The whole damn rescue had taken minutes, three or four at most, but Jensen felt utterly exhausted. He wanted to go to his and Jared's quarters, crawl under the bunk and hide. He wished he'd at least worn a hooded jacket, his scarf, _something_. The air seemed to burn his skin, the lights were too damn bright, the _noise_....

_Hey, hey, hey, you okay? What's going on? Jensen, hey-_

_Sorry, sorry, **fuck** ,_ Jensen thought, closing his eyes for a moment as he tried to get himself under control. But Jared saw - Jared _knew_ \- and Jensen felt the surge of alarm and anger and worry from him.

_Damn, damnit, I'm on my way, on my way_

_Jared,_ Jensen thought, and _tired, fucking tired, it's okay_

But Jared was already docking the mecha, stripping out of the safety webbing and the waldos, and climbing down. He was coming to Jensen, his determination like steel, impenetrable, and Jensen let it go, let him do...what he was going to do. He focused on Doc again, and the Quo that had surrounded her in a semi-circle, towering shapes glittering with fireflies and the swirling, beaded designs on their coats. Doc looked damn upset; looked like she was on the verge of shouting, maybe, or smacking somebody, though she'd never be that unprofessional. Her shoulders were like a rigid bar, and her voice had a tremor, emotions held tightly in check, for the moment.

"It isn't _working_. Every time I try to grow the new 'net cells, they kill the carrier. They treat anything that's not them like an invader and I can't grow enough to stabilize it, much less synthesize it."

"What was your carrier, before?" the Quo asked, long nose twitching a little, this way and that, as fireflies danced a slow dance around their head.

"Stem cells from Jensen's bone marrow. But I don't have enough of that to use, not for the volume I need, and I can't replicate it anymore, because the replicated stem cells don't live past me inserting the 'net DNA and I don't know _why_." Doc's voice went up for a moment, sheer frustration, and then she seemed to remember where, exactly, she was. Angels who had drifted closer once the Quo stopped driving them off were staring at Doc. The medicos that had been settling the woman on the gurney, making sure she was stable and comfortable, were looking at each other nervously, drawing together. In the eyes of the Angels, some of whom were actually aware enough - smart enough - to get the gist of what Doc was saying, they were acting like prey.

"We must speak of this," the firefly translated, as the Quo turned a little, side to side, looking at the crowd of Angels. They were a shifting mass of ghosties, of zombie-dead; pale or sallow or ashen, gaunt and trembling, some with pressure sores from being in bed too long, some with other wounds, from fights, from hurting themselves. A horde of lethal junkies with no fix in sight, being fed on stale water and protein muck, when they were used to...stardust. 

They were accustomed to radioactive methylenes; C17H19NO3 and C9H13N, the chemistry of opioid-amphetamine flight; nerves bathed in (5α,6α)-7,8-didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methylmorphinan-3,6-diol acetate, like the liquid core of incandescent suns. And now they were asked to swallow mud, to breathe choking gas, to lift steel-heavy bones and the insensate meat of grounded limbs. It would not, _could not_ , continue. 

_Coming, nearly there, Jensen, Jensen_

"We have been...reluctant to participate in this-" The firefly said a Quo word, a collection of hisses and bone-shaking harmonics, like the word was being caught and ground in immense gears. Jensen shuddered. "In this thing that you do, mutating the being of people," the Quo continued, and the others shifted and bobbed, looking uneasy, to Jensen; unsettled. "It is against our beliefs, this kind of...meddling," the firefly translated, as the Quo's long nose wrinkled up, little ears flattening. Aversion, easy to see. It made Jensen...angry. No. Furious. He could feel a rush of heat to his face; blood pounding in his veins, making his heart jump and leap like a go-pack hitting his bloodstream, that same rush of giddy recklessness.

"Hey," Jensen said, skirting around the nearest Quo to push in next to Doc, standing there and staring _up_ at the Quo, scowling. The 'sonics hummed in his bones, dizzying. His hands were knotted in the over-long sleeves of his sweater, and he felt like he might puke, but… "It doesn't matter if you- if you _believe_. This is _us_ , this is who we are, and we're _dying_. These people are- We're- My Angels are _dying_." Jensen's throat hurt, and he couldn't seem to draw a full breath. The Quo were humming, hissing, and it was prickling through him in ragged-edged, hot-cold waves.

"The Company did this to us, we didn't- we didn't _ask_ for this. We said we'd serve, we'd defend the whole damn Federation from the Stick and pirates and anything else and- and maybe we're not good people, maybe we did- did things..." Jensen dragged in a rasping breath, shaking now, the dry-must smell of the Quo in his nostrils, the heat of them, the dizzying glitter of the fireflies and the beadwork and the fancy, shiny stitching on their coats whirling in his sight. "But we- we _fought_ , and we hurt, and we died, and we were supposed to- They said we could go _home_ , when we were done. They said we could rest. They _promised_." Jensen stared up at the towering Quo, nothing but glitter-edged shadows in his tunnelling vision, his heart pounding, pounding, hurting his breastbone and making his lungs hitch. His anger skewed sideways into despair. "They promised. But all they want- all they want is for us to- us to d- _die_. It's not fair, that we h-have to die. Not now." Jensen gasped in a ragged breath. "Not when we could be free."

_Jared Jared Jared_ Jared’s presence was like a cool, soft wave; like being wrapped up in fluff and sweet, clean air. Jensen closed his eyes on prickling-hot tears, angry, and ashamed, and so, so fucking glad.

"Jensen, _Jen, fuck, what are they doing, we're leaving, right now, let's go, I'm here, I've got you_ , c'mon, honey, let's go," Jared said, his arm coming around Jensen's shoulders, his hand on Jensen's chest, steadying him. Jared turned him away from the Quo, and Doc, and all the others; the Angels and Devils and medicos, the living and the dead.

"C'mon, I got you, c'mon."

Jensen turned back to look, once, but all he could see was the glitter and shine of the Quo coats and the fireflies; the silvery lines of tears on the faces of fallen Angels.

 

In the dim quiet of their bunk, it was only them. _JensenJaredJensen us, we, us **us**_. Only the faintly spicy, faintly citrus scent of the cleaning solution that was used on their sheets and blankets; the deeper, salt-musk smells of Jared's skin, his hair; the both of them, together.

Jared took his time, deliberate and maddening and slow. He touched every inch of Jensen, with fingers and lips, teeth and tongue, bringing him back from that place he'd been in. Back from the hollow cold, the aching void, the cut-off desolation of knowing he could do nothing. 

Jared kissed, and stroked. He used the edges of nails and teeth; used his long arms and longer legs to cage Jensen beneath him, to wind around him and hold him still and close and _there_. He used everything he had to weigh Jensen down, keep him anchored - keep him _us us we JensenJared us_.

"Jensen, Jensen…." Jared said, his voice low and rough and a little breathless, the silken strands of his long hair like a curtain, hiding them. Jensen could feel the individual muscles of Jared's back tense and move and release under his fingers, could feel the shift of his spine. He flattened his palms on Jared's ribs and slid them, slowly, slowly, in and down. Hands on the dense muscle of Jared's ass, fingertips sinking in, a little, and pulling, he dragged Jared closer as Jared shifted up and pressed _in_ , twisted his hips a little, this way and that, so he was rubbing against Jensen everywhere, inside and out.

"Jared, ohh." _This this this us more we us this you Jared Jared Jared_. Wordless, breathless, his eyes mostly shut, Jensen dug his heels into the backs of Jared's thighs. He turned his head, so he could put his mouth on Jared's bicep and taste the salt of him. He couldn't _think_ , it was all images, sensations. His body was a wire held taut and tight and quivering.

_Us this we_ " _Qemuel_ ," Jared breathed, and that time on the ship was in Jared's mind, with all of Jensen's Angels around them, safe in the belly of their own fantastic beast, riding the line, eternity in a moment.

Jensen cried out, hoarse and desperate, his back arching, heels drumming as he came, hard. Jared moved faster and harder, his long back bowing over Jensen, his mouth coming down on Jensen's throat, painting it with hot puffs of air, with the wet of his tongue and lips. Jared shuddered through his own orgasm, pinwheels of lights and the long, shivery-hot sensations rolling through him, to Jensen, and back again, amplified and rebounding and seemingly never ending, until they both simply wound down to shivery heaps, breathing hard.

Jared kept up his slow, gentle kissing, here and there, just little nibbles of his lips, little touch of his tongue-tip to Jensen's throat and shoulder and jaw. Jensen wanted to do it back, but he was just so damn _tired_. Pleasantly sore, here and there, but under it all, just...exhausted.

"Chilly," Jared said, for both of them, out loud and in the 'net. He moved, up and back, a slow slide out and away, and Jensen groaned softly, pressing his thighs together as he rolled onto his side. Curling up, he tucked his arms into his ribs while Jared found the edge of the sheet and blankets and pulled them up. Settled against Jensen, knees and hips aligned, Jared draped one arm loosely over Jensen's bicep, the other curled under the pillow. Jensen shifted backward an inch or two, and sighed, settled and warm in the bubble of their shared heat, shared 'net. He listened as Jared hummed an unfamiliar melody, wispy images coming to him, of a hawk-nosed, dark-skinned woman slicing vegetables, of a pale woman with a cowl of grey-streaked hair, bent over a tangle of yarn. 

" _...you set your course for the furthest shores, And you never once looked back, And the flag you flew was a pirate cross, On a field of velvet black,_ ," Jared sang, thought, remembered, the pale woman looking up and smiling, the dark-haired one shaking her head, her deep eyes filled with light, and life. _Mama_ , Jared thought, love and loss and sorrow and a wistful longing, all like a deep tide, moving through him, smoothing him over. And Jensen felt it too, as he hummed along with Jared, the words teasing on the tip of his tongue, his eyes blinking slow, and slower, heavy and warm, until they were too heavy to open again, and he slept.

 

"You are correct that it is not fair," Hakase's firefly said, a tiny pulsing speck of green-white. Hakase themself stood hunched and very still behind it, their arms curled up, knuckles tucked against their throat. "We do not condone, but also we cannot see you suffer." Jensen blinked up at them, aware of how alone he was, here in the dim little viewing bubble that hung over the med bay. Jared was still curled asleep in their quarters, but Jensen hadn't been able to sleep anymore; had needed to come watch over the slow drift of Angels, stumbling, half-sedated, and the ones lying still as corpses in air beds, shrouded in generation webs and tubes, just shapes, barely human.

Hakase had come shuffling out of the shadowed hall, and Jensen felt pinned, half suffocated, the 'sonic shivering through him. But Hakase was trying, best they could, to put Jensen at ease. The Quo's halo of fireflies seemed subdued, clinging to the long hairs of their shoulders and throat, drifting in a slow spiral about their head. Hakase uncurled one arm, and kept uncurling it, the knuckles flattening as the tucked-under fingers spread out, and the long, gleaming claws, oil-sheened black, opened wide. Jensen steeled himself, and didn't flinch, though there was a high, grating 'sonic coming from the Quo, evidence of their distress. 

"Never in my centuries have I hurt a living being, though I am equipped to do so. That this Company does so, without conscience or care...can not continue. We see...your hurt."

Hakase drew their fingers together and down, the claws curling under, their arm curling back again, tucking up, a resting pose of unease and sadness, according to Alinx. Their long nose curled under, as well, for a moment, and then Hakase straightened, shoulders wide and arms at their side, head up. Jensen shifted a little, as well, bracing himself for...who knew what, the 'sonic constantly rasping at his nerves.

"Doc says you are to come to Doc's lab. Once Doc has the specimens needed and prepared, we will give our help."

"I...thank you. Thank you," Jensen said, and Hakase leaned forward, those long, thick arms coming out and briefly caging Jensen in, the 'sonic dropping from the nearly inaudible shriek, down, and down, and down, so low it became sensation, pressure, a vibration in the marrow of Jensen's bones. He clenched his jaw and patted, once, at Hakase's shaggy sides, and then the Quo was backing away, their arms tucking up again.

"Fffor-giff," Hakase said, his own voice, though the firefly duly translated. _Forgive_. 

And maybe they could; maybe _Jensen_ could, someday. Forgive the Quo for not helping sooner, for hiding instead of fighting, for being so damn stubbornly _not_ involved, even after they knew what was going on. But never the Company. Whatever fate the _Diaboli_ had planned for it, it wasn't enough. Jensen had decided that early on, in the first handful of days when the ships had come in, and they'd found out just what the Company had been up to for the last six, seven years.

 

_"They kept changing up the drugs,"_ Dee had said, clean and marginally healthier looking, with about twenty hours of sleep under her belt, and a couple of good meals, besides. _"Every damn time, after every mission, practically every jump, they'd send some new protocol, have the on-board pharma reprogram and start dispensing something else. It hit a bunch hard, we lost...a couple thousand, that way. And the replacements…."_

They'd all seen some of the newer, just-mustered-in Angels. Damn _kids_ , barely old enough to be charged with whatever had gotten them in prison; not old enough at _all_ to be handed an option like the ArchANGEL system. _"They're not even all...some of the new ones, they're just damn unlucky. No murders, no treason, no fucking dishonorable discharges. Theft, mayhem, nothing **bad**. I dunno who the Company's got under their thumb in Defense, but they're not even pretending to follow USF fucking rules about recruiting."_

Dee paused a moment while that sank in, a little ripple around the table, dragging her finger down the condensation on her glass, her gaze far-off; bleak.

_"They started throwing us into these ops. They weren't researched, they weren't _ready_. Our intel was bad, we were losing troops and even dropships left and right, and they kept handing us greenies to muster in, fill the holes and...fuck."_ Here, Dee had paused, taking several mouthfuls of the fruit juice and vodka drink she had asked for, her hand shaking, ice chattering in the glass. _"One of our Angels told me they were like animals in the 'net, or like...not even all there, not **right**. The psych blocks they're using are wicked, they're wiping half their brains when they're mustering them in, they can't **function**. We lost a good thirty platoons or more to damn friendly fire in the first year._ "

So kids, green and terrified, thrown into the utter overload of the ArchANGEL system, inserted into ships that had recently seen their own die of overdose, of toxic saturation, of anaphylaxis so sudden and severe that nothing could stop it. And the ones that weathered the drug changes, they had changed. Whatever was in the new packs, it had reprogrammed the 'nets to a degree, too, making being off the drugs intolerable, making being _on_ them into something almost like psychosis. Endocrine, chemical, systemic changes so profound, over a hundred ops had failed in some spectacular way, ANGEL troops that went berserk, that turned on Gunnies and LTs and their own dropship crews. The _Kanchinjínga_ , the _Æthere_ , and the _Clíodhna_ had all died that way, ripped apart internally by their own troops, fire and bodies spilling into vacuum, all hands lost. Three more were missing in action, presumed dead, but no one knew for sure, and the remaining fifteen had yet to slip the tether. Or maybe they were still loyal to the Company; at the very least, too desperate, too dependent, too fucking _high_ to know the difference. 

Their little group - Jensen, Jared, Raleigh, Doc, Alinx and Taichou-san - were shocked silent; horrified. Jared had flinched in the 'net from the emotions Jensen hadn't been able to lock down fast enough, and he'd simply shaken his head and pushed in closer to Jensen. All of them sat in a silent bubble of dismay for a long moment, while around them, _Diaboli_ , and what few troops were up for it, sat and drank and talked and played cards in the little rec room the medicos and crew had carved out near the med bays. Urbin was there, with his partner Ensign Zarahtos, the man who'd been in the evac suit. Zarahtos had been trying to get into one of the Angel quarters. Three of them had died, and the air was fouled, Angels living with the decomposing corpses and refusing to let anyone in; refusing to give up the bodies. It had been a last-ditch effort, and Zarahtos and five other crewman had barely made it out alive - without the bodies.

Other crew was there; the dropship crews and pilots, the coms and arms and switchers of the ships. Not ARCHAngels, but still with the Angel system in them, partial set-ups to make piloting and shooting faster and more accurate. They hadn't been messed with as much; they were still able to deal with the minimal drugs they needed; hadn't been tipped over into any kind of junk sickness, even when they'd had to rely on their own ingenuity to cook up doses in ship-born labs. The LTs and Gunnies that had mutinied were, as a whole, worse off, but still not down in it. Not dangerous enough, Jensen had supposed, for the Company to fuck them over quite so bad, but still in the danger zone.

_"The Company has got some damn big wigs on their side, USF Generals and half the Council, maybe more. And they're expanding, or trying to; buying up companies and rights to shit. They're trying to make themselves untouchable; trying to be the **only** supplier for troops, and arms, armor - all of it. They're building a fucking shipyard at Salome. They're...they're their own damn government, their own security, their own bank. They're swallowing whole systems, and nobody is stopping them._ " Dee had got up, then, glass empty, to get another drink, to join her shipmates, leaving the rest of them to sit in a scared and furious silence.

 

"Just...just help us, Hakase," Jensen said finally, shivering, wanting to go back to Jared, who was warmth and a sort of furry buzz, in the 'net. A firefly drifted to him and pulsed slowly, and Jensen gently blew on it, sending it drifting away. "Just help us, and we'll stop them from doing this. We won't...they won't hurt us anymore."

Hakase hummed at Jensen and bobbed a sort of bow at him, and then waddled away, their fireflies drifting for a moment, as a little cloud, before zooming after, vanishing into the Quo section. And Jensen went back to bed.

 

"Did it work?" Jared asked, and Jensen shrugged, shuffling on his feet a little. They watched as Doc bent over the optics of some kind of scanner, the curve of her back and neck tense, a taut, intense arch under the white of her coat.

The lab was eerily quiet, the normal chatter and soft computer noises completely silent as Doc bent over the scanner, looking for evidence that what the Quo had done - what they had given her - had worked. Jensen still had a sore spot on his hip, healing fast, from where they'd taken another sample of his bone-marrow that morning.

And then the Quo had done something, in their labs that were nothing like human labs: rooms of softly glowing webs and strands of light that hung and swung in bundles and delicate traceries, pulsing with white and pale green and sheer pink. Each strand was alive, somehow, lifting and touching, dipping and curling, drinking down whatever material they were given, and transmuting it in veined pods that swelled and then split, letting down softly luminescent bubbles of...something else.

They'd fed it his blood and marrow and spinal fluid, and the Quo had handed Doc something new. And now here she was, and they were all waiting: a dozen Axis _Diaboli_ , Alinx and Taichou-san, some of the medicos from the Arcology - even the Jo boys, lurking on the fringes with those _Tiamat_ and troopship crews that weren't unconscious in the bays.

Jared's hand, curled around Jensen's, was squeezing tight, and Jensen squeezed back, his eyes stinging from not blinking, his stomach tight and a little queasy. Fuck, how he hated this. But it had to work, it had to, it had to.

"It's alive," Doc said, and a little ripple went around the room. Jensen blinked. "It's...reproducing. Fuck, it's _working_. It worked, holy _shit_ , it's going crazy, it's-" Doc leaned back from the scanner, the curling green lines of her tattoos matching the strange green luminescence that was coming from the vial held in the scanner. A green glow that seemed to intensify, moment by moment. 

"Ah, shit, I gotta get this into- I gotta _work_ , people. Jaylin, I need the- the thing, for the-"

"Doc?" Jared said, tentative. She ignored him.

"Yeah, okay, got it," Jaylin said, a bulky man who moved with surprising delicacy, handing Doc something with gloved hands as Doc started pulling out rattling trays of vials and tubes, long pipettes, stainless flasks and glassine bottles. "Here, let me-"

"Right, yeah, okay, Den, Denny, get the-"

" _Doc_ ," Jensen interrupted, louder than he'd intended, but fuck it. "Did it _work_?"

"What?" Doc blinked at him, the scanner spectacles going from sheer white to mostly clear, twin lines of data sleeting down the middles, too fast for Jensen to begin to make out. "Yes, of course, what the fuck do you think I'm-? Yes, it worked."

_Worked, worked it worked_ "How long, then? Until you can-?" Jensen stopped, and tried to breathe - failed - and plowed on, breathless and shaking and everything in him feeling unmoored, light and soaring and giddy. "How long until there's enough, until-"

"Hell, the rate it's going? Sixteen hours. Sixteen hours, Jensen, and we can start inoculating."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An ANGEL soldier attempts suicide, some of her platoon tries to help her complete the act. She is discovered and stopped, and a rescue/medical intervention follows, with a bit of description. There is also mention of Jensen's previous attempts/thoughts of suicide, and mention of this being a recurring issue with the ANGEL soldiers.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swear to gods, people - not doing this on purpose. Every time I write, there's more that needs written! 
> 
> _ibn il-homaar_ \- son of a donkey (Arabic)  
>  _aspidochelone_ \- giant monster, like a turtle or whale (Greek)

_Would it have been worth while,_  
_To have bitten off the matter with a smile,_  
_To have squeezed the universe into a ball_  
_To roll it toward some overwhelming question,_  
_To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,_  
_Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all— "_

T.S. Eliot - _'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'_

 

 

"It's been almost three damn _weeks_ , Doc. Why aren't they waking up?"

"They were a hell of a lot more hurt than you were, Jensen. It takes time."

"Fucking-" Jensen snapped his mouth shut, jaw clamping tight. Yelling at Doc wasn't going to fix anything, no matter how good it might feel to just let loose on her. But he had to do _something_ , because he'd been on the razor's edge for days now - weeks - and he felt as if, inside his skin, there was a monster, with diamond claws and poison fangs. A monster of fire and buzzing, deadly energy, hissing and spinning and ripping at his insides, desperate to get out. And if (when) it did…. 

"Just...just keep me in the loop," Jensen muttered. Doc didn't say anything, just looked at him from behind her optics, her own face drawn with tension, her hair a mess and her white coat crumpled and dingy. Nobody was doing okay. Jensen turned on his heel and strode away, a fast walk that turned into a jog and then a full-tilt run, dodging through the corridors of the arcology. 

He headed for the gym, for the sparring room, for the only place he could really let go. He needed somewhere he could exhaust himself, throw himself against padded bags and walls and automated machines; batter his body into a daze; pummel his brain into something quieter.

He could feel Jared, off in the new, human section of the arcology, in the 'ponics room. He was concerned, and unhappy, but staying put. Jared might have more strength, more speed now, than he had before, but he still couldn't match Jensen when Jensen was going full out. And he knew Jensen didn't _want_ him there; too worried he might get hurt; too worried, in his blind ferocity, that he'd launch himself at Jared all unknowing. It had gotten to be routine, this; add it to the list of things that Jensen hated.

But it worked, mostly. In the gym, he threw himself into a brutal workout: running, lifting, pulling, pushing - sparring with the machines or just hitting, kicking, punching. Wilder and more frenzied by the minute, until he hit the wall, and started, inevitably, to come down.

It was like hitting the end of a go-pack; gasping for air, heart pounding, every muscle aching and shaking, gut knotted and his head just...empty. Jensen staggered sideways and sat down, hard. One leg curled under and one sprawled out in front of him, he flopped forward over his knee and just...tried to breathe. He wished - almost, not quite - for a down-pack; opiates and electrolytes and everything else to blunt the edge, to let him just...drift. A machine beeped at him, insistent and annoying, registering his elevated heartbeat, his wheezing lungs. 

"Shhut… _up_ ," Jensen gasped out, rolling sideways a little to escape its arm, the sensor array at the tip. "'M...fine."

 _"Cardiac distress, respiratory distress, electrolyte distress-"_ the thing piped, and Jensen levered himself upright and flapped his hands at it.

"I'm not...in distress. Just need to...rest and...need a drink. _Replenishing drink_ ," Jensen said, and the machine hummed and whirred away, trundling back a few moments later with a chilled squeeze-bottle of some kind of pale-blue drink. Jensen took it and just _drank_ , so the thing would leave him alone, and after another moment or two of humming and beeping, it did.

Well, he'd sat long enough, his heart was slowing, his lungs were doing their thing, he was _fine_ , of course he was fine.

He finally focused on the hand holding the bottle, and winced at the split skin and swelling knuckles, the bruising that was climbing from his fingers to the backs of his hands. His left knee ached, his gut did too, and his feet felt shredded from pounding into anything and everything. His whole body seemed to throb in time with his heart, muscles and joints protesting the punishment he'd handed out.

But in a day - two, max - he'd be...good as new. 

He felt a little nudge from Jared, and pushed back _okay all good tired_ , not wanting to _deal_ with that, just then. He drank more of the stuff in the bottle, finally registering the taste - salt-sweet-chemical- _blue_ \- and the temperature, which was sub-zero and almost painful on his raw throat. But it was helping, as nasty as it was, and so he finished the bottle off and sat there with it in his belly like a ball of ice, wondering if getting up and getting more was worth it.

That nudge again, only this time it had an edge of confusion, and Jensen frowned. He let the squeeze-bottle drop and rocked himself forward, onto hands and knees, and then - slowly, laboriously - _up_. He staggered a couple steps sideways, kicking the bottle accidentally, and then deliberately braced his feet and stretched. Everything twinged. The nudge came again, _query query query_ ; not even words, barely coherent, just _question_. An edge to it of _more_ than confusion, and Jensen stood there, his hands loosely at his sides, concentrating.

_Jared,what, hurt? Okay?_

_Good_ , from Jared, a brief flash of a 'ponics tank, bright fish, a dizzying curtain of bubbles going up and up the sheer filtration wall, mist and green and bright, silvery bodies, a pattern without pattern that soothed, almost hypnotized.

 _What-?_ Jensen thought, and then the nudge came again, but this time, it wasn't a nudge, it was a _punch_ ; it was someone reaching, pushing, grabbing, _panicked_ ; someone utterly lost and undone. Someone _else_.

 _Query query query_ , like a klaxon, and Jensen shoved back, startled, bewildered.

 _Jensen **Qemuel** identify, stand down_ , Jensen thought, loud, and everything stopped. And then…

 _Qemuel...query query hurt lost...assist **help** me Qemuel assist assist assist…._ Wavering, now - wavering and fading, muddled, getting fainter. But familiar, oh _fuck_ , so, so familiar.

" _Kane_ ," Jensen breathed. And he was running again.

 

Jensen skidded into the med bay, crashing a shoulder into a wall and clawing at the pressed bio-stuff panel, getting it under his nails. He shoved off and staggered upright _moving, gotta keep moving, gogogo_.

The adrenaline rush acted like a go-pack, making everything too bright and too damn _slow_ , his breath rasping in his throat, but eventually he reached med bay A, where _Tiamat_ troops lay amidst generation webs and air beds and, for some, the slow hiss and huff of respirators. A was where Kane was, Jinx, Five - all of them, every one that had survived. And Kane had been given the vaccine, even though there were worse there. Kane one of the first, because Jensen just needed… _needed_ someone from his ship, from his unit, from his _family_ , there with him.

He staggered up the line of gurneys and air beds, already-aching legs throbbing. A knot of medicos and _Diaboli_ surrounded Kane's bed, trying to hold him down, trying to get him under restraints, cursing and frantic.

"Kane!" _Kane Sariel here stand down safe steady steady safe_ Loud as he could, hard as he could, _pushing_ with all his might, and he felt Jared recoil, away in the 'ponics room, and then _what Jensen coming_ , and- 

_Qemuel assist Qemuel Jensen help where hurts_

"Let him go! Let him go!" Jensen waded into the mess of people trying to hold down the kicking, twisting, punching shape that was Kane. The web was torn, the rack of monitors all beeping alarms and distress, a wrenched-out tube hanging off the edge of the bed, steadily dripping. Kane was utterly silent except for his gasping breaths; waxen-pale skin, blue eyes fixed wide open and his mouth twisted in a snarl. Terrified.

"Kane, Kane, _Sariel_ , fuck, get _off_ him, off!" _Sariel, stop, safe, you're safe, steady, steady, you're safe, safe, stand down_ Jensen got an elbow in the rib, one of Kane's feet in his belly, and then a wildly flailing hand across his throat, a glancing blow, all knuckles. He hissed, shouldering at the bodies in his way, one hand finding Kane's web-wrapped shoulder.

"He's gonna hurt himself!"

"Fuck, I know that, let him _go_ , let me, get _off_ , _go_!" Jensen shoved, with his considerable strength, uncaring, sending medicos and a _Diaboli_ reeling, knocking the air bed askew and finally, finally, he got both hands on Kane. Sweat-soaked cloth under one palm, Kane's fever-hot, sweat-slicked shoulder under the other, he pressed _down_ , every way he could.

" _Kane_ , listen, it's-" _Jensen Qemuel I'm here, you're safe, stand down stand **down** , Kane, **stop** **STOP!**_ Everything he had, in that last command, every bit of strength he could gather, and Kane dragged in a rattling, ragged lungful of air, rigid under Jensen's hands. Distantly, Jared yelped, flinching and reeling back against a bubble-lift wall, and Jensen sent _sorry, I'm sorry, Kane…._

Kane was arched, trembling, mouth wide, a thin thread of sound coming out of him. Jensen shook him, his own heart pounding painfully fast, afraid he'd shocked Kane into some kind of seizure, or relapse, or...something.

As quickly as he'd reacted, Kane went limp, crumpling onto the bed, his eyes drooping shut. The three or four centimeters of hair that had grown out on his scalp was bedraggled, matted into spikes. Sweat gathered in beads at Kane's temples; ran like tears from the corners of his eyes. Or maybe those _were_ tears, fuck. Jensen shook himself and gave Kane the tiniest of pushes, gentle as he could.

 _Kane? Kane in home safe here you're here Kane Sariel easy stand easy safe safe safe_ A rapid flood of emotion, images, words. ANGEL in the 'net, just like _before_ , just like always, just like home….

Kane just breathed, jerky and too quick, shoulders quivering under Jensen's hands. Kane's hands, curled into fists, slowly unclenched, and his eyes slitted open a fraction, _query query query_ in the 'net. _Fear_ , and _hurt_ and _lost nothome where_ ; twitching at every beep and trill from the monitors. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, and he was staring at Jensen, pupils tiny in a sea of fractured blue. _Qemuel_ "Qemuel?", Kane's actual voice a rasping whisper that hurt to hear, his lips dry and peeling.

" _Yes_ , it's me," _you're safe, all in, stand down_. 

"What," Kane said, his hand shaking as it groped for Jensen's, fingers thin and cold and dry, nails broken, blue at the base. Jensen caught it, curling his fingers around Kane's, cradling them. _**Tiamet** , report, where, how are we, how, query, query…_. Fading out again, his eyes lost focus, fluttering, closing, and then he was out, just gone.

Jensen pulled Kane's lax body half off the bed, crushing him close and tight, breathing in his stale hospital smell, sweat smell, _ANGEL_ smell. His bones were too prominent and his muscle was gone to toneless laxity, but it was Kane, all the same, and Jensen wasn't sure he could let go.

"Jensen?" _Okay? You okay? Kane!_ Jared, staggered in, red-faced and breathless, hands on his knees and his hair in his face, staring. "Jensen, I could- I heard him. Kane, I...I could…." _Both, heard you both, fuck, what's happening, what is it, he okay?_

"He's okay, he's okay, he-" _Better now, he'll get better, he will_ "What did-? What did he feel like?" Jensen asked, and Jared leaned on the bed, watching as Jensen reluctantly eased Kane flat, arranging his arms, stroking his fingers back through Kane's ridiculous explosion of hair. 

"Like...like you, kinda. Afraid. Like-" _Home safe brother_ , Jared thought, and Jensen could feel the grin on his face, and the sudden, hot prickle in his eyes. 

_Family_

The medicos that had been hovering all that time, far enough away to be off Jensen's radar, moved in, disapproving, nervy. Jensen stepped back a pace or two and let them fuss around Kane; fixing the tube, stripping away the ruined generation web, finding a fresh tunic to expertly wrap around him. One dabbed at Kane's mouth with a wet puff of fiber, another checked his pupils. Someone finally shut off the damn monitors, quieting the racket, and then they were sliding away, leaving a fresh sheet lying over Kane's hips.

"Doc's coming," one said, and Jensen just nodded and leaned there, staring down at Kane. Jared came and leaned next to him, hip and shoulder bumping, _us we_ in the 'net.

 _Us we...three, now. Us?_ Jensen thought, wanting. Hoping. Jared laughed softly, and his warm, calloused fingers touched Jensen's chin, turning his face gently towards him. He was grinning, his eyes bright, lashes wet, and Jensen knew...so were his. Just the same.

"Yeah, Jensen. Yeah," _Us we three of course, of course, us._

 

"I can-" _do it fuck off don't need help_. " _Fuck_!" Kane snarled as the resistance machine beeped at him and shut down. "Fucking-" _idiot machine bullshit rig it can do it not fucking sectioned_ " _ **Shit**_!"

" _Kane_ , fuck's sake." Jensen hovered a few steps away by his own machine, ready to go over to Kane and...do something, though fuck if he knew _what_. He could feel Kane's anger, and his impatience. He could feel his _fear_ , at not coming back to what he was used to. To _himself_. Not being….

_Not right fucked up never be right wrong all wrong wrong wrong_

_Kane, no-_

"Hey," Jared said, turning up in the gym doorway, his hair a mess and dirt-stained gloves tucked into the pocket of his ugly, brown coveralls. Come up from the 'ponics rooms, smelling of water and fish and earth and _green_ , so quiet in the 'net but always _there_. Always hearing, always knowing. "Hey, Kane-" _I know, I know, **not** wrong, you're not, promise_ , Jared thought, and Kane made a disgusted, furious sort of noise.

A flood of images, then, in the 'net; Jared when he'd first got the 'cure' at Salome. Jared taking his first, wobbly-kneed steps without a 'skele in years. Jared, thin as a wire and aching in every joint and every muscle, pushing, working, panting. _Hurting_. Fighting a body that had been warped almost beyond reclamation. Fighting it, and sometimes losing, but always, eventually...winning.

 _Takes time, you'll get there, promise, it hurts, I know, you'll do it, so much stronger than me, you're good, you're so much better already…._

Kane sniffed, slumped on the bench of the machine, the skeletal, glassine and steel 'arms' at rest behind him, like some ancient Terrestrial insect Jensen had once seen a picture of. Kane's hands dangled down between his knees, shaking ever so slightly. He sniffed again, and reached for the towel slung over a bar. He scrubbed at his face; scrubbed the towel back through the sweaty spikes of his hair, grimacing.

"Fuckin' hair is nasty, man," he said, his voice a little thick, a little rough. The hot, prickling feeling of held-back tears, that they could all feel in the 'net, was ignored.

"You should see Jared's at the end of the day," Jensen said, and Kane grinned, crooked and hesitant. But real.

 _So fucking good, thank you, love you_ Jensen thought, not even sure if he was thinking it at Jared or Kane or ...just...all of them. All fifty-seven Angels who were now awake, in some way or another. Coming back, slow but sure, and more on the way. More, currently, lying in the med bay and fighting through the last of the cytokine storms that were wiping out the old, flawed 'net, clearing away the cancer-ridden, booby-trapped debris left in the Company's wake. Clean slate for new growth, new 'nets. 

New lives. Some of them remembering their old ones, now, as Company psy-blocks faded. Nightmares, and longing, and nostalgia mingling in their dreams.

"Need to do some cooldowns," Jared said, kicking off his muddy boots and sprawling down on the padded floor. He patted the padding next to him, and Kane snorted. 

_Fuckin' mom_ , Kane thought. But he levered himself creakily up and off the machine, breathing hard. Jensen decided enough was enough for him, too, and powered his own machine down. As Kane slowly got down onto the floor, Jensen grabbed some squeeze-packs of electrolyte drink from the 'fridge and joined him, passing Jared the disgusting blue, keeping red for himself. Kane liked purple, though fuck knew what it was supposed to taste like. It made his teeth sort of lavender, which Kane thought was hilarious.

 _Gonna get 'em tinted like that. And my eyes,_ Kane thought, carefully leaning down over his stretched-out legs, a leering image of himself with dyed teeth and eyes pushed into the 'net, and Jared made a horrified face. Jensen snapped the end of his towel at Kane's knee.

"Fuckin' weirdo," he said, grinning, and Kane shot him a truly filthy little snippet of memory; shore leave, Glory station, Jinx and Kee and Jensen and Kane, a box of lavender-tinted toys, and way too much vodka. Interest came back, encouragement, Angels in the 'net intrigued or amused or just bored. Egging Kane on.

Jared made a squeaky noise of pure shock, mentally backpedaling, physically covering his eyes and moaning into his palms. "Nooo...don't make me...my braaain!"

"Oh, you ain't seen _nothin'_ , Kane said, floodgates opening wide, and Jensen felt laughter, in all of them, expanding up and out like bubbles of sheer, crystal light. Pure joy.

 

"So, look, here," Raleigh said, leaning his arm on one bent knee, the curving bulk of his belly poking over the waist of his trousers. "If we strip out the backbone and the synapse rig, we can skip over all that mess in the sync cluster-"

"If we skip the sync cluster, it won't fucking _sync_ ," Malik said, and Raleigh shook his head.

"No, yes, it will, here-" Raleigh tapped out something on his dataspot, and a holo glowed to life above it, showing the neural 'net of the half-disassembled ANGEL armor that hung from hooks and hoses above them, different colors for different systems. Blue and green and yellow and white; enviro, weapons, coms, hydraulics. It was like seeing a person stripped to veins and nerves, only double - triple. The ArchANGEL armor wouldn't sync with the new 'net, and half the Angels awake were trying to figure out a work-around. It kept them busy, at least; kept them from that deadliest of down-time trooper diseases: boredom.

 _How in hell never figure that out so confusing_ , Jared thought, and Jensen glanced up at him from where they sat on the squishy, plastic-grate floor. They were both cleaning and repairing armor parts, bits and pieces fanned out around them, marked with grease pencil and ragged strips of tape in an attempt to keep them in some sort of order. Jared had lubrication oil smeared on his nose, a bright green smudge.

 _Only fuckin' geeks get it_ Jensen thought back, and Malik reached without looking, picked up a shin plate, and chucked it at Jensen's head. Malik was, actually, one of the few Angels who didn't have issues talking with people without a 'net; he could actually form whole sentences and keep a coherent conversation going for hours at a time. A lot of the others...really struggled.

_Fuck off, loser, you wish you knew as much as I do_

_Geeeeek_

A ripple of amusement went through the 'net, quick and light, and Jensen bent down over the gunked-up servo he was trying to clean, grinning so hard it almost hurt. Sous was there with them, and Five, Kerrin, and Grieve. Others, too, whose names were images in his head, all sensation and color: a Principality, skin dyed in vivid starbursts; a couple of Thrones, surgical-tall ears tufted in pale blues and yellows. And others, not _Tiamat_ ; a handful of Angels from the _Apsû_ , dark-skinned, with metallic tattooing that mimicked the circuitry inside the armor; a few from the _Wu Zetian_. They, like some of the others, kept their heads shaved, their bodies slickly clean, in a dogged hope of getting the armor to work again like it used to. All that skin seemed almost odd, now, to Jensen. Most everyone else had some kind of hair growing back, down to a ridiculous but intriguing beard on Malik.

New Angels, new names, new memories, new ways of doing things. New _family_ , in the 'net, more every day. Jensen kept waiting for it to stop working, for the 'net to stop reaching, for some of them to be in their own little web, like before; platoons and divisions and ships all kept separate.

 _Divided us so we'd never know_ someone thought - Ji-yun, one of the _Wu Zetian_ Angels. Jensen glanced up to meet her gaze, almond-shaped eyes in a delicate mask of elaborate makeup; some kind of flower, all pinks and yellows.

 _Stronger together_ Jensen thought, agreeing in that oblique way of the 'net, following a thought without really having to conceptualize or explain it.

 _Us we they us now all_ , from Jared, which made Ji-yun smile, and that ripple again through the 'net - amusement, affection, agreement. 

"...so overclocking, here, and piggybacking the coms array means we can completely eliminate the sync cluster, see?" Raleigh was saying, as Jensen tuned back in. Malik stared at the holo, where Raleigh's tapping finger had highlighted some areas, darkened others, and twisted other parts together.

"What? No, no, that's-" Malik stopped, his head jerking up, and Jensen's too, and Jared, Sous - the whole room of Angels, as if on cue - their heads coming up like robots, busy fingers going still as something _else_ came through the 'net. 

"What?" Raleigh said, oblivious.

 _Query query report hurts hurts where query_ A new Angel, waking up, pushing out a confused static of panicked questions. 

"Should we-?" Jared said, grease pencil gripped tight in his fingers, and Jensen reached out and curled his hand over Jared's whitening knuckles.

"No, it's fine," he said. _Jinx has them, Sunni, Max…._ The scattered, too-fast mess of question and emotions from the waking Angel peaked and then settled as Jinx eased in and soothed them down, explained what was happening. Images, a jumble of words, impulse and emotion, all rote, by now. Sunni came in, too, his presence in the 'net so calm; warm. And Max, like quicksilver, always a hint of laughter running under her thoughts; the least intimidating Angel Jensen had ever had in his head, until you gave her a target and a weapon.

 _Safe now, free now, listen, feel, family, all family, you're healing, you're safe_ Jared chimed in, and Malik, and then Jensen, too, showing this new Angel - whose name was something dark, a shifting swirl of light and shadow ( _Storm_ ) how wide their new family was. 

There was confusion, and then relief, and then...sorrow, profound and aching, as Storm reached for someone that wasn't there. Might not _ever_ be there. Max, away in the med bay K, opened a roster on a dataspot and started searching, and Jensen eased out, letting her work, letting Jinx and Sunni comfort this newest member of their family. They were over five hundred, now, growing steadily, Angels waking nearly every day. The vaccine was being doled out to more and more as the worst cases, those in the most danger, were healed, and those who hadn't been in such immediate danger were inoculated in bigger groups. 

_What is **storm**?_ someone - a _Xevioso_ Angel off in the 'ponics - wanted to know, and a half-dozen Angels, and Jared, supplied varying images and explanations, boiling clouds and veils of rain and lightning in five distinct colors vying with 3D maps of air currents, spinning planets, water evaporation. Jensen shivered at the mental sensation of cold rain, wind that pushed like a hand at your back, thunder so loud it vibrated in the bones. All of them lost in sensation and memory, until the clatter of a piece of armor, slipping from someone's hand, brought them back. Maybe a minute gone. Maybe less.

"We're not under attack, are we?" Raleigh asked, and Malik shook his head and took a long breath.

"New Angel," Malik said, and Raleigh made a kind of ' _oh_ ' expression of understanding. "This is not gonna work, man. Look here," Malik said, finding a stylus and stabbing at the holo Raleigh still had up, and Jensen huffed out a small laugh and leaned into Jared's shoulder, still feeling a ghostly chill.

 _Storm. That's a good name,_ Jensen thought, pushing it out, making sure they heard.

 _I like it,_ Jared thought, doing the same, and a tiny curl of pleased surprise sparked in the 'net. _Welcome back,_ Jared added, and they all bent over their work again, the 'net humming with curiosity and reassurance and - ten minutes later - a fragile and growing joy, as Max found Storm's squad in the med bay. 

 

Six months passed, with Angels waking nearly every day, until there were just under four thousand hair-trigger, clannish, stir-crazy soldiers making life...interesting, to say the least. _Interesting_ , Taichou-san remarked, watching a room of fifty or more Angels erupt into a near-silent, vicious brawl, _is a curse in some circles_.

Jensen could believe it. 

The new ones - the greenies - were the worst. Never really suited to be Angels in the first place, sent in as replacements to platoons and ships that didn't want them and couldn't _deal_ with them, they were a constant source of tension and upset in the 'net. Especially once the psy-blocks were gone, and they (everyone), started to remember just how fucked up their mustering-in had been. 

A few didn't make it; bottomless depressions of nothingness in the 'net that, one day, surged and flared and were gone, just as _they_ were gone. Slashed arteries, space-walks suitless, whatever it took.

After the third one, the Quo and Doc and the arcology med staff buckled down and brewed up something that seemed to help. It smoothed the jagged edges and eased the racing thoughts and racing hearts. What was left of the oldest Angels took it upon themselves to pull the kids in and just… _be_ there, in the 'net, in ways the kids hadn't ever really experienced before. Not in the constant state of fight/flight/rut the Company and the drugs had kept them all in for fucking months. Years. 

They slowly settled, bit by bit, and people started sleeping again; started laughing again.

Raleigh and Malik had finally figured out a work-around for most of the armor. Weaponless suits had been assembled and tested obsessively in the halls and rooms of the arcology, sometimes with less-than-optimal results. It was a distraction, at least. It helped a _lot_ with the greenies, whose working knowledge of the suits had been scoured out with the old 'net, and now they came to it like the veterans did, by sitting on their asses and breaking suits down, cleaning, oiling, building them back up again. Over and over and over.

The Quo requested that armored Angels stick to only a few decks, and then only with advance warning to arcology residents. Stalking on armored legs, with the bulk and hydraulic-assists, even the hulking Quo could get hurt by someone getting a little too enthusiastic

A few of the new kids even had decent skills, and Jensen saw new decorations being painted or etched into armor plates, colors and shapes and words, making the sameness beautiful.

Troop-ship crews - what were left - had spent hundreds of hours bringing the ships that were in the best shape back online; testing, fixing, cleaning, re-stocking. Six ships waited, now, spangled with running lights and humming with power, to skip out and do...something. _Anything_.

And gradually, they fell into a state of waiting that was uncomfortably like those final few hours before a go-pack kicked in. Tension sparked in the 'net like pins-and-needles, a constant frisson that could make you crazy, if you let it. To combat it, Angels spent a _lot_ of time in the gyms; in the armor; in the ships, helping to make them ready; or in the blanket-draped 'quarters', working out as much aggression and hyper energy as possible in the least destructive (to others) way. Jensen had seen the embarrassed, curious, and sometimes _envious_ looks from various arcology residents. Fortunately, most of the Angels didn't care about an audience, and most of the arcology residents only lasted a minute or two, at best, before fleeing.

The drop-ship and regular crews - Air Force Space Command - had come in with only partial Angel systems, to allow them to handle the delicate, hyper-responsive controls of the ships. All of them had opted for the vaccine; scared of the Company's traps and chemical bombs; scared of what might happen. Their presence in the 'net - curious, tentative, hopeful, delighted - was much like Jared had been. He still was, when dozens of Angels were together and the thoughts and emotions, ideas and impulses, memories and desires, flew thick and fast; so much, and so _intense_ , you could lose minutes - hours - to the flow.

_when are we going what are we doing fight them kill them take it to them this is war war **war**_

_green so green soft like hair like skin like water but solid, but what is, what is, what is...taste taste it green, **alive**_

_green so green soft like hair like skin like water but solid, but what is, what is, what is...taste taste it green, **alive**_

_want to fly miss it skip the line in the between ride the bubble she goes she goes want to go feel her **fly**_

_there fuck more deeper oh touch, touch me there yes more all c'mon us we in come in in me you us all **all**_

Sometimes, it was too much for the newest, the youngest - the most hurt. The effective range of the 'net had increased with each addition of several hundred newly vaccinated Angels, so now only a few places in the arcology were far enough away to fade it to near silence. Jared, and a few others, sometimes hopped a skimmer with a Quo or two and toured the system a little, getting some relief.

All of which meant… they needed to go, to do, to _end this_ , or the Company, soon. _Very_ soon. Jensen knew that the _Diaboli_ , and the Quo, and the arcology citizens, had begun debating, strategizing their next move. Morgan - and oh, he was _dark rough warm gentle_ such a distraction, in the 'net - had taken some of the last few officers and some Angels along to a couple of those sessions, but things got heated, fast, and now it was down to just a Major and three drop-ship pilots to argue the military side. 

It seemed to have been going on forever - really, only about fifteen days - when the decision was made for them.

 

" _All residents, unknown ship incoming. Please relocate to any secure hold or safe room. Please do not stray into corridors or lifts. Repeat: all residents, unknown ship incoming. Please relocate._ " The firefly chanted its alarm again and again, following Jensen and Jared as they careened through the corridors ( _Off limits, please find a secure hold._ ) and into a bubble-lift ( _Lifts are not secure if there are hostile actions, please relocate._ )

The further they got, the more agitated the firefly became, pulsing faster, the recording repeating louder, the 'voice' becoming higher the longer they ignored it. It even, Jensen was sure, wincing, slipped in some 'sonics; anything to reinforce the message. As they stepped off the bubble-lift and jogged toward the obs-con deck, more fireflies zoomed in from other corridors and rooms, all of them sounding the alarm, a half-dozen colors flashing brighter and brighter, the voices overlapping and muddling into an incomprehensible babble.

" _Chugn!_ Jensen snapped, flinching from the circling, diving motes. " _Chugn,_ fuck, I hear you!"

"I don't think they care," Jared said, panting, waving his hands at the dive-bombing fireflies. They finally made it into observation and control, where seemingly every firefly in the room started toward them.

"Hakase! Hakase, get 'em off us!" Jensen called, spotting the head of obs-con in a huddle with a dozen or more others, humans and Quo. Hakase lifted their head and made a long, wavering sort of sound that dipped into sub-sonics, basso vibrations Jensen could feel in his bones. It made him wince, and Jared stumbled, gasping. But the fireflies stopped, all at once, glowing impossibly bright for a few seconds and then settling back to their normal, pastel glows, darting away to wherever they were supposed to be.

"Fuck." _finally, ow, damn_ Jared rubbed his temples, grimacing, and Jensen pulsed agreement, his own head thumping along with his bootheels on the deck.

"Thanks, Hakase," he said, as they strode up to the knot of techs and scientists and _Diaboli_. Hakase dipped their long-nosed head down, furry arms spreading wide.

 _"Su, su, su_ ," they hummed. "Aah..pol-gees." And then something in Quo, all hisses and rumbles. " _So sorry to have disturbed_ ", a firefly translated, blinking pink-white, and Jensen bowed his head a little, Quo manners.

"No damage done. Can you tell us... what's coming? Who's out there?"

"Shhhi _pah_ ," Hakase said, and Jensen felt the spike of panic from Jared, instantly squashed. Felt every Angel in the arcology _notice_ ; a sudden prickling, thrumming sensation as _query attention attention query query_ rushed at him from all sides.

 _Stand by stand by stand by_ , Jensen thought, loud and steady, and the ghost-sensation of a crowd - a mob - all standing at his back, tense and breathing hard, faded a bit.

"It's a troop ship," Alinx said, not even glancing up from her half-circle of hovering consoles, her fingers flying over the surfaces, data flowing like water in their wake. "Angel ship, yah? But not...it's…. _Ibn il-homaar_ ," she muttered, scowling, and Jensen glanced over at her assistant, who shrugged, tapping away on a dataspot and shooing the inevitable half-dozen fireflies that followed Alinx everywhere.

"Alinx, damnit, _what_ -?" Jensen said, and Alinx murmured something to a firefly and sent it zooming away.

"Shhhi _pah_ ," Hakase said again, and then a long string of something in Quo, rumble and hiss and boom, and Alinx nodded along, her own personal translator firefly whispering in her ear.

"The profile is...off. Same general silhouette; there's a skip array, and dropships, yah?" She listened again, head cocked. "The echo's close, sub-sonics…. But this is...bloody shit, _aspidochelone_ , yah?"

" _What_?" Jensen said, and Alinx's assistant - Jensen could never remember his name - blew a firefly away from the tip of his nose.

"Means buggering huge," he said.

"Huge compared to _what_?" Jared asked.

"Usss," Hakase said, and they gathered up the Quo in the huddle and strode away to some other, larger gathering across the deck.

"Fuck, fuck, fucking- Sorry, I gotta- Yah?" Alinx wheeled around to follow, moving fast, the consoles and her assistant struggling to keep up, the fireflies chiming and glowing, a whirlpool of agitation in her wake. 

"What is she-? What-?" _What ship who is it Angels troops Company?_ Jared looked bewildered, his eyes wide, and Jensen leaned into him, one hand going up to grip Jared's shoulder.

 _Report, damnit, **Qemuel,** sit rep who is it what how long?_ Kane, loud and demanding, his voice rising above the indistinct hum of the rest; tension like a plucked wire, thrumming through the 'net. Others joined him, _query query query_ , more and more, that hum jangling up to something else, too hard, too fast.

 _Stand by stand **down** no actionable intel hold, hold hold!_ Jensen thought, pushing hard, and after a moment Jared echoed him, and then Kane, Jinx, Max, others; a cascade in the 'net until it settled again into the usual rushing, hissing static that meant the line was open - they were waiting. Listening.

"Raleigh, what's going on?" Jared asked, as the man drifted to a stop beside them, his hands in the pockets of the big, Quo-style, beaded coat that he'd taken to wearing just lately. 

"What Alinx said. It's a ship, and it's massive. It's in the between. Thing is-" Raleigh twisted his head, rolling it on his shoulders, and Jensen could hear faint crackling, grinding noises coming from the vertebrae in Raleigh's neck. "It's not really headed _here_. It's just...out there, like it's trying to find us but it's not quite on track. It's _wrong_ ," Raleigh said, and then Alinx's assistant hustled over with a dataspot and a floating console for him, and Raleigh drifted away again, hands working on the machines, all his attention fixed on the sliding, shifting data.

"Fuck,"Jensen said. He relayed that on through the 'net, and then tugged Jared with him to the massive viewing port. They stood there, the target of occasional fireflies and a few wandering Quo, for another hour. Jensen couldn't keep his gaze from the system beyond the thick, clear pane; he couldn't see the ship, but it was almost as if he could… _feel_ it, or hear it, somehow.

Out there in the dark, skimming the line, riding the bubble; calling through space and time, a digital scream.

 _Maybe they're lost_ , Jared thought, hope like a warm hand, like a kiss. _Maybe it's more Angels that got away, or…_ "It doesn't have to be bad," Jared said, and Jensen reached up to cup Jared's cheek, letting his fingers slide back to pet through the long, slippery-soft strands of Jared's hair. That hope and that warmth, fragile-sweet, going out through the 'net.

"Maybe," he said.

 

Another hour passed, and another, with Angels resorting to sparring, or eating, or fucking - anything to break the tension. Jared thought about going to the 'ponics room _watch the fish clean the filters something_ , but he couldn't quite make himself leave Jensen, and Jensen was glad. They made out for a while, tucked into a nook in ops-con, just trying to relieve some of the tension. But that attracted some curious Quo, which made Jensen nervy, which made Jared laugh, so they stopped, after a while, fending off pornographic memories and fantasies from half a hundred Angels, intent on passing the time in the most lewd way possible.

As the third hour ticked over, and the hum of the 'net started to rise again, jagged and chaotic, Jensen made up his mind to go find Hakase, or Taichou-san and demand they do...something. Any-fucking-thing; anything but this endless, frustrating standby.

He didn't have to, though; even as he stepped away from the port, looking, a Quo waddled toward him, moving fast. It was Shoumei, and she was showing a round, pushing belly in the gap of her coat; carrying maybe six, eight kits, Alinx said. Jensen...couldn't imagine it. He'd never met a woman who'd opted to carry; they all used the machines, exogenous wombs. There _were_ Quo children in the arcology, but mostly they were in their own section, protected and shielded, and not allowed around strange humans and chancy Angels. Jensen had only seen them once, through the 'net: a school group, it seemed, touring the 'ponics, blinking up wide-eyed at Jared in his 'skele as Jared had moved great crates of fish food into a storage area. Quo children were...very fluffy.

"Jen-zen," Shoumei said, and her fireflies were in a tight little halo around her head, pulsing fast and bright. " _Iynght srahzss_ , we do _iynght srahzss_. Puuull, bring they."

"Like you did with the troop ships?" Jensen asked. 

" _Su, su, su_."

" _Fuck_. When, Shoumei? When will you do… that?"

The Quo tipped her head to one side, and a firefly danced free of the halo, pulsing bright, whispering. "Thhhree… _tchk_." She said something to the firefly, and the firefly zipped over to hover in front of Jensen.

"In five hours, _iynght srahzss_ will commence."

"Five...okay. That's- Thanks, Shoumei, I-" Jensen nodded his head, distracted. He heard Jared asking Shoumei something, taking up the slack, because Jensen's mind was racing, the information going out, strategies, contingencies, and the Angels were taking it up and running with it. The 'net went from a whisper to a roar, and Jensen forced orders through the noise, designating Kane, Jinx, Ji-yun, a half dozen others as Command, trying to put some order into the flow.

And then Morgan - _Morgan_ \- was in the 'net, as he seldom was, reinforcing everything Jensen was putting into place, backing Jensen with his own years of experience, of command. Backing him, _not_ overriding him, and for a moment Jensen wavered, inundated. _Can I can I don't know, don't, fuck_

 _You can_ , Jared thought, warm and strong and _there_. And then Malik was there too, and Grieve, and Sous, and _more_ of them; a cascade of affirmation and attention and _yes yes yes you go do tell ours lead go_

His Angels - _his_ \- every one of them.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Querida_ \- sweetheart (Spanish)

_...but it is what You are;_  
_in your own image as some_  
_lexicographer supposed._  
_the face, both he and she,_  
_the odd ambition, the desire_  
_to reach beyond the stars_  
_is You. All You, all You_  
_the loneliness, the perfect_  
_imperfection._

Lucille Clifton - _'Brothers'_

 

 

The six ships that had been salvaged and restored stood off from the arcology in a loose formation: the _Seker_ and _Wu Zetian_ to the zenith, _Matangi_ and _Kanagatucko_ to the nadir of the arcology, and the _Apsû_ and _Hissa Hila_ fanned out wide of the entry point the Quo had designated for the incoming ship. Each was crewed with as full a complement as they could muster, having had to borrow from the arcology staff, at the end, to get full bridge crews.

Angels, too, in every bit of armor they had got live, were on board ships or in the halls of the arcology. Angels even out in the skimmers, cobbled together gun emplacements welded to the dome-studded hulls. Jared had been out there, cold-welder waldo and magnetic boots, the first among many, a steady, _steadying_ presence in the 'net. 

The Quo had objected, quietly, but Jensen had told them…. Well, Jensen had shouted and gotten himself too damn _angry_ to talk, and Raleigh and Morgan and Lt. Dee had taken over, sending Jensen off with Kane and Ji-yun for a few minutes of cool-down. 

But the others had made it clear: regardless of the Quo's dedication to nonviolence, the Company wouldn't hesitate to use force. Nor would the military, regardless of the Federation's stance on non-human, sentient life. Angels were a threat, and they'd view the Quo as either dupes, co-conspirators, or prisoners. 'Acceptable losses' in all categories.

They made it clear the arcology would _not_ fire first, and they would do their best to be defensive _only_. But they weren't going to die under fire, either, just to placate the Quo.

The Quo, once they'd accepted that things might get hot, had spent most of the time securing the arcology, particularly the children and obs-con, and doing some kind of records transfer with bundles of hair-fine, glowing filaments, fireflies, and dense, crystalline globes of the same material that made up the consoles. 

The entire arcology was locked down, and in some cases powered down; silent and still and waiting.

Jensen was on the _Apsû_ , in reclaimed armor, his Angels around him, watching the countdown on the ship's screen and feeling the steady, warm pulse of Jared in the 'net. Jared was in obs-con with the _Diaboli_ and Morgan and Taichou-san, a weapon on his hip that was just about as nerve-wracking, to him, as the wait. The _'let me tell you about what stupid/dangerous/funny thing I did my first firefight'_ stories from the other Angels had flown thick and fast - their notion of helping. They'd left off when Jensen had all but growled down the 'net, taking pity on Jared's locked-down, wobbling panic, and the growing twitchiness of the greenies.

 _Here we go here we go stand by, ready-steady, all to me, stand by stand by…._ The murmuring surge of acknowledgement, from every Angel and crew, was like being drowned in a wave of heat and pressure and hum, and Jensen let it drown him, lift him, wash through. They were ready.

_"Counting down. One minute. All ships, all personnel, brace and hold. **Iynght srahzss** in fifty seconds...forty seconds...thirty seconds…._

 

When it came, it was as unsettling as it had been the first time. Once again, everything seemed to simply...stop. The entire universe shivered to a halt; every molecule and atom, every quark, every neutrino, seeming to spin out into its own orbit, dancing to the low, heavy thrum of the underlying pulse of the universe.

And then everything snapped back, and the 'net surged with reaction. Jensen let it go - let them react - stayed the calm center, reassuring. _Just like before, when we got you, no harm, no harm…._

Then the light, the vector, opened into space some five thousand k from their position; a blossoming pinhole into the Between that flared out, blinding, and then was gone.

And, in its place, a monster. A ship so huge, Jensen couldn't actually take it all in; it was simply _there_ , like a moonlet or a comet, blocking out stars, bulking over them all. 

The 'net surged again, and so did coms - instant chatter, questions, exclamations, overlapping each other and drowning each other out, and the 'net ratcheting up to simply _noise_ ; too much, too fast.

Jensen gathered up every ounce of power he could feel, feeding off what the 'net was pushing at him, and sent it back, in one hard, sharp push, like a slap. _Com silent come silent com silent_ "Com silence!" He saw the Angels near him recoil, but the 'net went quiet, only the soft, hushed hiss of an open channel. 

Com-chatter stopped, as well, and Jensen stared at the console floating beside him, trying to make sense of the picture that ladar was painting. It was...impossible. The ship bulked nearly as big as the main structure of the arcology in tonnage displacement. A dark wedge shape, it was leaking radiation, skip-charge, and heat into space like an open door. No running lights, no hail - nothing. It seemed…

 _Dead. DoA. **Qemuel** , it's dead._ Morgan, and then Kane, and then others, the 'net whispering, and then over coms, Taichou-san. 

_" **Apsû** , we need a closer reading on this, there's too much shielding. Are you prepared to do a fly-by?"_

"I-" Jensen stopped, and looked at the console again, and then out the shielded port he'd stationed himself at, one of the only ports on the ship. The invader was barely visible, more an absence than anything else, blotting out the stars.

" _T'ssmg'ku_ ," Jensen said, giving the arcology name his best try. "USF _Apsû_ and _Hissa Hila_ will be doing a fly-by in preparation for boarding. Stand by." On ship-com then; " _Kanagatucko_ and _Matangi_ , form up, defensive stance on my location, _Wu Zetian_ and _Seker_ , to _Hissa Hila_ , position and hold. We are doing a fly-by, no contact, scan for skip or weapon's array to go bright, copy." Dopplered in the 'net, coms all but unnecessary, except to warn the arcology of what they were doing.

 _"Copy,"_ came back, Angels and arcology staff and troop-ship crews alike, steady in coms. The 'net...seethed, but no one was talking, not yet. Not much.

 _Careful oh careful you me us love you us_ from Jared, a thread of extra warmth, and Jensen sent it back. He felt Kane and Five and Jinx and Ji-yun, all the others, his _command_ , affirming, sending the ready-steady, solidly on his six. 

" _Apsû_ and _Hissa Hila_ control, when you're ready - take us out."

 _"On count, five, four, three-"_ The ships moved, and Jensen braced himself, his jerry-rigged armor ticking around him, the 'net humming in his bones. He watched as the towering silhouette of the other ship eclipsed them, a meter at a time.

 

 

"It's been breached," Jensen said, a murmur into coms, his gaze fixed on the vid that was spooling across his console. " _Hissa Hila_ com, do you see any impact damage? Ionization, scorching, anything?"

Com hissed and popped, and Jensen switched camera views, scanning. 

_"Negative, **Qemuel** , nothing. Not detecting anything. It looks as if- I think they vented. Those are internal breaches,"_ Captain Onray said, a drop-ship Captain promoted fast and far, piloting a ship fifty times what the drop-ships had been. Jensen could hear the tightly controlled nerves in her voice, the shiver in the 'net from her that she fought to keep under control. He dragged the zoom up, leaning in, looking closer.

"I think you're right, _Hissa Hila_. Five, Jinx, Kane - boarding party. We'll use the skimmers. Fifteen minutes."

 _"Aye,"_ came back, through coms and 'net, and Jensen stood there a moment longer, watching the long, pocked flank of the other ship glide past, dark and torn, seemingly empty. Then he strode away, armor hissing and clicking, down the corridor and down the lift, to the skimmer bay.

 

They nosed in through two of the hull breaches; three skimmers from the _Apsû_ , three from the _Hissa Hila_ , five Angels per, except for Jensen's skimmer, because he hadn't felt right, taking command of a squad away from _his_ Angels. They passed through the hull, past the exposed layers of titanium-tungsten, glassine and plex and aluminum-alloy, eight meters deep. Inside - relatively inside - the walls in the broad beams of the skimmer's searchlights showed marks of fire, and the deep, too-smooth gouges left by plasma-pulse rifles. And there was what looked like blood - dark, red-brown smears of it - over some of the flooring, and here and there on the remains of consoles and walls.

The 'net hummed with speculation and curiosity, and Jared surfaced from that hum, a little stronger, a little closer. 

_Fight? Defense? Did they get attacked?_

_Recon_ , Jensen thought, and sent that impulse out, barely remembering to use coms, as well, to keep the arcology informed. " _T'ssmg'ku_ , we're going to recon. Please monitor all power relays and the array."

 _"Su, su, su,"_ came back, Hakase in control in obs-com.

 _"Scan says the seals are intact. There's atmo on the other side of the bulkhead,"_ Jinx said, scan image and readings rippling through the 'net.

 _"Same readings here,"_ came from the _Hissa Hila_ skimmers, docked in a similar cavity about one hundred and fifty meters aft. 

"Acknowledged. Arm and out, two minutes," Jensen said, and the pilot let the skimmer drift forward and down, magnetic tethers snaking free and attaching, reeling them in as close as possible to the massive pressure-seal that closed off the section. A single green light glowed above it, steady and unblinking and Jensen wondered just what they'd find. Federation Marines, or ANGELs, or just...more nothing? Blood, maybe bodies…. 

Jensen shook himself just a little, then stalked over to the weapon's locker to claim his rifle alongside everyone else. They hadn’t been able to activate the armors’ integrated weapons systems, so they'd had to improvise, taking the systems out altogether and refitting them for hand-held use. That had taken up a lot of time and energy, the last few months, but most of the Angels were now as comfortable with weapons they could accidentally drop (hilariously often, in Kane's case, until he got the hang of it), as they had been with weapons that all but grew out of their suits.

The skimmer's hatch slid aside, and they trooped out. With a little push of directional jets, they were sinking to the scarred floor of the compartment, magnetic boots latching on, HUD systems flickering to life and integrating scan information from the skimmers. It took two minutes, maybe less, to make it to the deep-set air lock in the pressure seal. Their suitlights didn't seem to penetrate more than a meter into the utter blackness of the powered-down ship, and Jensen shivered, just a little. So dark, so empty. So dead. 

Malik moved forward with his toolkit and dataspot to bypass the command codes, and get the hatch open on their side. If it conformed to most troop-ship designs, it would be big enough for at least a squad in full rig, maybe two. 

_Bypassing_ , from the other skimmers, their three squads deployed, ANGELs Jensen knew only through the 'net, and rig testing in the halls of the arcology. But they were steady, veterans; he could trust them.

Kane was strong in the 'net, his energy hyped, _through first, on point_ , aggressive. Jensen confirmed it with a nod and something in the 'net that, to Jensen, always felt like a yelp of encouragement: a baring of teeth in a feral grin. The lights over the keypad blinked a little dance and then stuttered to solid green. Malik disengaged his dataspot and tucked it away, got his rifle up and ready, and tapped out the open code. 

"First squad ready to lock through. Fourth? Where are you?" 

_"Bypass is a go, on your count, **Qemuel** "_, from fourth squad leader, a tall, scarred ANGEL who called themselves Coy.

_Ready steady. Count of three-_

"On me. Three, two, go," Jensen ordered. Malik hit the code, and the airlock opened.

As the door moved aside, they all braced, but there was nothing. Just the airlock, empty of anything but a few bits of trash, a glittering puff of metallic dust that tumbled out as the atmo inside escaped. Kane and his squad moved in, and the lock slid shut behind them, a rumble they could all feel through their boots. 

_Ready steady code is a go pressure stable opening be sharp here we go go go_

And _lock empty, bypassing secondary hatch, ready ready on watch all go go go_ from Coy.

 _"Airlock is pressurized. Opening the inner airlock way,"_ Kane said, Coy echoing. The 'net showed them the door moving aside, showed the sudden stab of suitlights into blackness and then-

_Fuck fuck **fuck** get in here, **Qemuel** , now, bodies, there are bodies-_

_"Casualties on the ground,"_ Kane said, his voice devoid of the sick urgency that had flooded the 'net, and Jensen felt his heart start to pound.

 _"We have bodies, repeat, bodies on the ground. All squads lock through,"_ _Arm and up, go go go_ from Coy, crisp and sure, the 'net jumping with adrenaline.

"Kane, Coy, report. _T'ssmg'ku_ , do you copy?"

_"Su, su, su. Hear 'ou."_

_Angels, Angel armor. But it's wrong,_ Kane thought, and images were in the 'net, a go-stop-go montage of spot-lit images. Tumbled bodies, rent-open armor, fire-scored walls, and blood, in dried smears and splashes. The bodies of Angels and what looked like Federation Marines, left where they'd died, in tangled heaps. _Parts_ , near the pressure seal; someone had engaged that massive door without warning, and some of the troops had been caught as it had thundered into place, flesh and bone no match for tonnes of glassine and titanium-tungsten alloy. 

"Multiple bodies, no lifesigns. I see Angels, what looks like...ships crew...at least a platoon's worth," Kane said, and the 'net surged and murmured and hissed as the images went out.

 _Angels. Seem like Angels. And Federation Marines. I see ionization, I see plasma-pulse burns. There was a firefight,_ Coy sent - rattled that off in coms, more military than most, and Jensen caught the suggestion of a long history of service, a Marine before they were an Angel; a soldier most of their lives.

Kane was right; there was something _off_ about the Angel armor, and Jensen gritted his teeth and waited, impatiently, while Jinx's squad locked through, and then it was Five's turn, third squad, Jensen crowding in at the back. The 'net tingled and hissed, like a go-pack but not, and Jared was right there, so close inside that it was almost as if he _were_ inside, and Jensen was grateful for that.

The airlock opened, and it took a moment for Jensen's HUD and suit light to steady, and feed him the images. 

_Fuck **fuck**_

_"Please recon and relay, what do you see, **Qemuel**?"_ obs-con asked, firefly translation, and Jensen wanted to say, to tell, but….

The bodies strewn in the tall, wide corridor were days dead, maybe more. Shattered armor showed black and purple-red glimpses of corruption; more lightly-armored Marines already distilling down into slumped and puddling mounds, skin slipping, lips curled dryly back from teeth, eyes sunken to nothing. Nightmare glimpses in the sweep of the suit lights.

"Move, everybody move," Jensen snapped, sweat running down under the armor, his heart pounding, pounding. "Scan for lifesigns and get going. Head for the bridge." _Don't look Jared don't look they're dead, they're dead…_

" _T'ssmg'ku_ , we have multiple casualties, Marines and Angels, no crew yet, no lifesigns. Vid feed to your consoles now. Stand by, we're heading to the bridge."

 _"Su, su, su,"_ , Hakase said, after a long pause, and Jensen was sure there was sorrow in that hissing sigh.

 _"No life signs, continuing scan."_ _What's **wrong** with them?_ Five said, the 'net flooded with suit-lit images of weirdly formed skulls and too many teeth and legs that were- that bent all _wrong_.

 _Dogleg,_ came through from Morgan in the 'net, and an image of an animal, with legs that bent backward instead of forward, four legs and a long nose and teeth…. _Dog_ , from somewhere, _animal not human what what what_. Jensen tuned it out and started walking fast, Kane and his squad to the fore, down the long corridor of the dead.

 

The bridge had been vented. There was nothing there, nothing but blackness and ripped-out wires, waving in slow undulations from tattered walls and consoles. Malik said secondary observer would have access, probably ship's logs, blackbox, something. So they headed there instead, a couple levels up, through lightless corridors and sealed rooms; through more bodies, hundreds of them, locking through airlocks and seals that had cut the ship into partitions against vacuum, but hadn't saved anyone. 

In a couple of places, emergency lighting strobed and stuttered, making false movement out of the shadows, making the 'net jump with adrenalin. 

_Sec-obs here, hooking up, stand by_ Malik was all business in the 'net and on coms, and Jensen sighed in relief and pushed up to the bank of consoles, watching. Malik stood bent over an open console, toolkit and dataspot in hand, a frown on his dark face, the slim beard highlighting the cut of his jaw behind the shield of his helmet.

 _"Lotta data here,"_ Malik said, something spiking in the 'net. _Got readings, got life-sign, someone's here_

"Where? How many?" Jensen asked, and he could feel Coy, Five, all the squads attention like a shivery, hot-cold prickle through the 'net. Malik slid data from one console to another and opened a map with a flick of his fingers, holo hovering blue-white and jumpy in the mote-dusted air.

 _"Not sure. Lot of shielding. Here."_ _Schematic con-three. Looks like...level fifteen, aft bulkhead-_

 _Looks like quarters,_ Jinx cut in, and agreement rippled through the 'net. _Crew or troop or Angel._

_Looks like. Gotta get there. Five-?_

_Faster in the skimmers. Drop-ship access was blown here._ The schematic lit up, rotating and enlarging at Five's manipulation. _Go right in._

 _Agree. **Xaphan** , need you with_ Jensen said, unwilling to leave Malik behind.

 _"I can relay to the Quo. They can pull and sort faster than my 'spot, anyway. Take me a minute to set it up,"_ Malik said, and Jensen nodded. 

" _T'ssmg'ku_ , this is **Qemuel**. Stand by for a data uplink from the ship's black box. All squads will be moving out, returning to the skimmers to access the aft bulkhead. We have a lifesign. Please continue monitoring all power and skip-array output. Do you copy?"

 _"Su, su, su. Aaall dark, no life,"_ Hakase said, and Jensen acknowledged. He took one more look at the data schematic, and softly pulsing, amber-blue spot that indicated life. He could feel the attention of every Angel in the 'net, a soft thrumming of speculation and energy, the desire to go go go, to move, to _know_. 

Time to go.

 

The breach of the drop-ship bay was more total destruction than a deliberate drop. It looked as if someone had _tried_ to deploy a ship, but fire had instead caught it, ripping it to scrap. Debris moved along with the slow drift of the ship, caught in her wake in the Between and not let go once the Quo had yanked it into the now. Another sector seal showed beyond, deeply scored by fire.

All six skimmers fit in easily, with room to spare, and they settled into position, tethers locked. The squads moved out again in a repeat of their earlier recon, thirty soldiers in tight formation, weapons charged and ready. And Jensen, ghosting in the very back, the pressure from Kane, and Jinx, and Five in the 'net forcing him to the rear - most protected. Coy, without a word, had taken up the six position, guarding Jensen's back, and Jensen...wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Mild, unsurprised approval flowed out from the 'net, and Jensen had a moment of complete unreality, stalking in the clicking, humming armor, something that - maybe a year ago, as he'd lived it - he thought he'd lost forever.

There were fewer bodies here, a profound relief. They moved through the air-locks and corridors easily, hitting that long, almost bounding lope that the armor and ANGEL bodies could create and maintain for hours and kilometers, following the little firefly of light and life on the schematic that Malik had sent to everyone's HUD.

 _Quarters, it's quarters_ , Kane thought, sudden burst of images in the 'net, of spot-lit bunks and mess and showers. But all of it was laid out, row upon row, open and impersonal and _dark_. The walls were the uniform dull-grey of every Federation ship ever made, but no paint, no images, no graffiti lightened the sameness, or made borders and nests and territories. 

_Like the barracks on Salome_ , Jared thought, little shiver of cold through the 'net, and others were remarking on it, uneasy - unhappy. There were a few bodies here; the same strange, altered Angels, with their wide, fanged mouths and back-bending legs. Now, without armor, they could see that the skin was a sort of ashy grey, the genitals...shrunk, somehow. Small and soft looking, too smooth. The spine of one body showed multiple ports, a chain of them all down the knobs of bone, and Jensen felt himself baring his teeth at that, furious and sickened.

_What did they do what did they do wrong all wrong fucking Company look at them wrong no, no, **no**_

_Stand down stand down stand by,_ Jensen thought, pushing with all his strength, shoving back the growing, buzzing tide of the 'net: anger, and fear, and a kind of frantic horror. 

_" **Qemuel** , repor', what sssee?"_ Hakase asked, a little sputter of static in Jensen's ear, and Jensen took a long breath, rounding a corner, heading for what looked like operations, or com central for the Angels on board.

"We're in what appears to be the Angel barracks," Jensen said. "Coming up on...looks like ops, or central. That's where our life-sign is. ETA...about three minutes, give or take."

 _"Su, su, su,"_ Hakase hummed, and Jensen caught, dopplered, a moment's conversation between Jared, Raleigh, and Alinx, coms and 'net, before Hakase shut the connection. _If there was something wrong, I'd know, it's fine-_

 _Ops, moving in, second and fourth squad, swing right, third and fifth left, Coy, you're six, stay on **Qemuel** , on point, moving, this is ops_ and that was Kane, taking charge, so damn _good_ \- so far beyond his first, shaky day or two as squad leader, so long ago. Jensen was so damn _proud_ of him, and didn't care that it went out through the 'net, a warm pulse of _love_ and _good_. Jinx echoed it, and Malik and Five and Sous - all of them. 

Respect and acknowledgment from Coy, and their squads - and a slow surge, out and back, from the entire 'net, as Kane's story was sent, broadcast, and Angels approved. 

_Us we family good careful, oh careful, safe safe safe_ from Jared, unmistakable, and Kane took those last few steps into ops, the whole exchange having taken maybe five seconds, five heartbeats.

"Moving in, stand by, _T'ssmg'ku_ ," Jensen said, and then they were in.

 

Standard ops, with a half circle of ten to fifteen stations to monitor troops, the ship, bridge ops, drops ships, and Angels, in action or on stand-by. A place Jensen hadn't spent much time in, on _Tiamat_ ; a place mostly for the LT, Gunny Morgan, ship crew. But even in the shifting glows of the suit lights, it was obvious that an effort had been made, here more than any other place, to wreak utter destruction.

The consoles were shattered, the stations gouged by plasma-pulse blasts as well as what looked like armored fingers. Chairs ripped from their anchorages and crushed or broken to pieces, even the walls blasted open, wires and circuit boards and conduits spilling out like intestines.

And in the center, something else. Something _new_ , that had every Angel circling around, edging in close, playing the sodium-white of their spots over it, the HUD showing the end of the line. The life sign they were reading came from here. 

It was a sort of platform, raised up above the rest of the stations, lit by a single dim, blue-white glow. It seemed to hold something like a chair and generation tube combined; skeins of wire and tubes and conduits roping the base and twisting up and up and around, and depending from the overhead. The tube itself was mistily opaque, as if filled with some kind of smoke, or frosted over. 

_What is it what is it someone? alive? query query query_

_Stand by, recon, hold the line_ , Jensen thought, and stared upward. "We need to-" _Get up there, Jinx, Kane_

 _On it,_ , in tandem, and Kane slung his rifle and started upward, clinging to the ropes of tubes and wires, Jinx close behind. It seemed that maybe the platform should lower itself, or sink into the deck, but the destruction of ops had destroyed the mechanism.

_Lifesign is...weak, human...someone inside. Malik, need you, get this open-_

Malik, summoned, climbed up as well, his armor humming, and the squads stood like icons around the platform, every faced turned upward, every light. Jensen watched and felt Malik bypass a keypad, force a locked door to slide aside. A puff of chilly, steaming atmosphere curled out of the tube. 

Kane leaned in, shoving at a mess of lines and wires, dragging them up and out to reveal a figure, human, hurt. There was blood. There were...IV lines, oxygen, clamps, and the oily-black gleam of polycarbonate bones, an armature of replacement limbs, bare necessity, and a bare, pale skull, a face.

Jensen - all of them - saw this, in the bone-white glare of the spot, in the fuzzing blue-green-red of the HUD. They saw Kane's armored hand reach out, and carefully, gently, tip the face up, pushing aside a clotted mess of wires and sensors. It was a strong-jawed, high-nosed face, its skin gone the sickly sort of ash-grey that dark skin goes when the person is ill. Full lips were parched nearly white, cracked, with old blood gathered in the seam. Dark eyes were filmed over, blue-grey, blind, half shut. Their lids flickered, their chest hitched in shallow breaths; they were alive, barely. But that face...that _face_.

 _" **Sinna**!"_ Kane bellowed, and it whiplashed through the 'net: the face, the person, the _Angel_. _**Sinna** It’s Kee, Kee, Kee_

 

 

 _Can't be, she died, saw it, knew it, how what **Morgan** fucking report, stand by stand **down** fucking hell-_ Jensen stood, knees locked, as Sinna shoved past, brutal in her haste, and all but leapt up onto the platform. Kane fell back, fast, and then Sinna was bending down over the tube, her fury and terror in the 'net so loud everyone was wincing away, but taking it - letting her - as Kee's story spilled out in the 'net.

Some op, on some world in some Stick assault, dead and gone in the 'net and on the ship, _Tiamat_ Angels yanked off-world before they could recover any bodies, another ship moving in, other troops. And somehow she was _here_ , years and light years away, locked into this ship, barely alive, barely _herself_. 

Jensen ignored Sinna's output for a moment - it was too focused, it hurt too fucking much - to snatch images from Jinx, from Kane, from the HUD. Wires and sensors from the platform-tube went into ports in Kee’s skull, her neck, her arms - no, _arm_ , because the right one was gone, replaced by a polycarbonate skeleton, no attempt at anything remotely human. Her long, too-thin torso, behind bands of glassine, was the same: ports and sensors, wires and tubes. Her right leg was gone, as well, and half of her left, and it was as if the whole sensor array of Angel armor had been stripped out and plugged directly into her flesh and bones. As if they were trying to make her into armor, or machine. _Fuck_ , what had they done to her?

It was horrifying. It was _obscene_... and she was alive. _Alive_

Jensen swallowed against a sudden surge of sickness, his gut churning, his heart pounding. Panting hard, he wrestled his own emotions under control, half-buried under the furious, boiling cloud of Sinna's. 

_How how, dead, we saw **Morgan** how **how**_ Kane and Jinx, Max - every _Tiamat_ Angel - was suddenly turning, in bewildered fury, on Morgan, and it hit the 'net and rebounded, story shared, outrage shared, the 'net humming and buzzing and roaring.

And Jensen didn't care, he just - didn't. Couldn't. Kee was here, she was alive, she was the _only one_ alive, and they had to get her out.

" _T'ssmg'ku_ , we have a survivor, Angel survivor, we need immediate medical evac, my location."

 _"Su, su, su,"_ from Hakase, and then a firefly, piping translator voice. _"Please scan and transmit on medico channel, medical personnel are deployed."_

 _"Kee, oh, Kee."_ _**Querida** , please, where are you, where-? She's not **here** , she's not, what did they do, what-?_ Sinna was getting frantic, overwhelming in the 'net, because Kee was _not_ in the 'net; hadn't been, not for a moment, not the barest murmur since they'd found her. Totally blank, null. Silent.

Sinna clawed at her helmet, at the faceplate, and shoved it up, overriding a warning beep, cancelling the HUD in her 'net flow, so that instead, like a slap, something else was there in the 'net. The cold, clammy mist that was still curling up out of the tube, the stink of a body long untended. Chilled metal, burned plastics, blood, piss. Sinna slapped at the locks and disengaged the armored gauntlet on her left hand, and they all watched - felt - reached with her, as she stretched her hand out, the lip of the tube-thing a barrier at Sinna's chest, the edge of the helmet blocking part of her view. Sinna's hand - shaking, shaking - reached and then touched the gaunt, sweat-slick skin of Kee's cheek. The skin under Sinna's fingertips was cold, and Sinna stroked gently, leaning in as far as the armor would allow. Jensen's suit could hear sounds, now, unfiltered - tiny hissings, and cracklings, the thick, labored wheeze of Kee's lungs.

_"Kee? Kee, it's Sinna. We have you, **Querida** , we have you."_

Kee shivered, the skeletal fingers of her polycarbonate hand flexing, tapping on glassine and metal with sharp little clicks. Her clouded eyes lifted, searching, and Jensen could see sensors lifting, like fine hairs moving out from her naked skull. Her jaw worked, and then her lips moved, unseaming, cracked skin letting down a sudden, grotesquely bright thread of scarlet blood.

 _"Ssss….Ssin?"_ Kee said, and Jensen wanted to _scream_ at the ruined hiss of a voice that had once sung to them, like something out of a dream. 

_"Oh, **fuck** , Kee, Kee- "_ _Help her help her, **now** fuck, where are the fucking medicos?_

 _On their way, Sinna, just stand down, wait, don't move her, might hurt her, we'll figure it out_ Jensen ordered, and Sinna curled down over Kee, her voice gone wobbly and cracked.

_Malik. Get who you need, get this figured out, we have to get her **out**. Coy, take fourth, fifth and sixth squad, go recon, make sure there's nobody...nobody else. Keep the line open, take no chances, be **careful**. Five, Jinx, Kane - whoever Malik doesn't need, send them to quarters, scour the place, any intel - go, go, go!_

The squads scattered except for the three Malik chose. Dataspots and tool kits came out, everyone trying to figure out how to get Kee out of the damn tube, out of the glassine and metal embrace of the ship, without killing her. Sinna stayed up on the platform, armor locked into a curve over Kee, her voice a whisper, her hand never leaving Kee's cheek, her jaw, the curve of her skull. 

 

It took almost an hour to free Kee from the grip of the tube, and in that time, every squad reported back: no life. Not a single person remained alive on the ship but Kee, and it was obvious, after poking and prying and delving into every console and data storage undamaged enough to access, it was all deliberate. The Angels had mutinied, and destroyed the ship from the inside out. Why...was still a mystery.

When they could finally, delicately, lift Kee up and out of the tube, to immediately settle her into a sling of generation wrap and monitors, Jensen got the squads moving in an escort to the medico skimmer and then back to their own - back to the ships. A moment's consultation in the 'net, and then Jensen gave his orders. The ship's black box had given up everything, down to size and number of bolts in the hull, and they didn't need - couldn't get - anything else from it. There was enough power to set it moving, on course away from the arcology. 

Malik and Jinx went to the skip array command, and set the overrides. In six hours - well clear of the arcology - the skip array would power up - and up, and up, and up. Death-charge, last skip. It would flare out of the Now and into the Between in fire and particulates and dust. Utter destruction. A fitting end for an Angel ship, and for the Angels who had died on board.

When Jensen got back to the arcology, he didn't bother to strip out of his armor, he just moved, striding through the corridors, trailing Kane and Jinx, Five and Malik and Sous, Grieve and Max in his wake. Straight to obs-con, straight to the gathering of Quo and _Diaboli_ and arcology staff, he marched right up to Hakase. They were on level, now, with Jensen in the armor, eye to eye on the decking. The fireflies whirled and danced, tracing the armor seams, humming. Jensen unlocked the faceplate and shoved it back, dragging in a lungful of clean, cool, Quo-scented air.

"Hakase, we have to go. We have to go to Salome, to the Company. We have to _end_ this. We have to do it now. Will you help us?"

The fireflies hummed and chimed, swarming, swarming, before settling, one by one, on Hakase's fur. They beaded Hakase’s throat and shoulders, hovering in a winking, glowing halo all around their head, whispering to them. Hakase's long snout tucked under, arms curled up, their hands tucked up against their throat as fireflies zipped in from all over the room, in and out again, faster than the eye could see. Eventually, Hakase lifted their head, arms going down and out, fingers uncurling to show the long, razored claws, snout lifting.

"Jen-zen," Hakase said. "Jen-zen. Yessss. We go. _Iynght srahzss_ , to Sssal'o'eh. All. All of us."

"All-?" Jensen said, and Alinx sidled up, looking excited and a little sick. 

"They mean-? They said… all of the them, too, yah? The Quo, the _Diaboli_ , us - they're moving the whole fucking arcology, Jensen. All of it, yah?"

"Fucking hell," Jensen said, feeling gut-punched, surprise making his head spin for a moment. The 'net surged and rebounded and then settled, a steady hum of excitement, and from down in the med bay came the first trickle of information from Sinna. Kee was in, settled, they were working on her, she was alright, she was there.

"Hakase, I...thank you. Thank you, for helping us. Are you...sure?"

Hakase lifted their head, shoulders going back, their whole curved body stretching tall for a moment, out of the habitual slump most Quo affected. "Wheee are. I...am shhhure. Time, now, for thisss. For uss. Time to end it."


End file.
